Beijing Olympics come to a close, passes down to London

It's closing night in Beijing, shown on tape delay 12 hours later in NYC. A bit odd watching Nightly News with Lester Holt live in Beijing's sunshine, and going directly to Bob Costas a few minutes later in darkness.

I'm sad to see the Games end; it was the best Summer Olympics I can remember, from amazing athletic drama to great stories from Beijing. I always prefer the Winter games for their intimate scale, but it's hard to beat these games for sheer Wow! moments.

They're showing the men's volleyball gold medal match, U.S. vs. Brazil. They pick it up in the second set, Brazil won the first set and are just down 20-18 in the second. The U.S. team has already exceeded all expectations, but it'd be nice for their coach, the one whose father-in-law was murdered on the first day of the games, to come out of here with a golden memory.

Wow, U.S. almost gets aced, a great save and then a scoring spike. 22-20. That's the key play here in the second set so far. And now an aces from the hard-serving Clay Stanley, 23-20. He scores on a spike, 24-20. Nice timing, NBC. Mmm, and a service error; that's allright, he's aggressive. 24-21. Net violation against U.S., 24-22.

Now they're reshowing the drums sequence from the opening ceremony, it's even more awesome than I remembered. That will never be topped.

Back to volleyball, in the third set, U.S. up 12-10. Hmm, this thing must've gone five sets, otherwise there wouldn't be all this editing. 16-12, U.S. seems to be in good flow. Now U.S. pulling away a bit, up 20-15. Ace from Brazil, 20-16.

Now U.S. goes on a little run, wins set three to go up 2 sets to 1.

U.S. trailing a bit in the fourth set.... After commercials NBC has been running little vignettes about China; this would've been nice on opening night, no?

Now 17-15, U.S. down.... Later, U.S. fighting back to 20-20. They win this match, it's timed so we go to closing ceremonies in a few minutes. Priddy's just serving great. Wow, an amzing point, back and forth; U.S. blocks to end it. This match is over; Brazil is claiming some sort of violation to no avail, up 21-20.

Now 22-20, right as we hit the 8:00 golden hour. Ooh, Priddy hits it into the net. 22-21. A gift point as the ball randomly glances off the Americans onto the Brazilian side of the court, 23-21.

And now, gold medal point, 24-22. Brazil's star Giba was taken out, now back in. Stanley up to serve for the U.S. 24-23. Hmmm. And USA wins! On Stanley's spike! What an amazing, totally emotional run for the U.S. team. Their coach is fighting back tears, many of the players are crying. Hugh McCutcheon is walking off into the tunnel by himself to try and compose himself.... One of the announcer's voice cracks.

In the interview McCutcheon fights back the tears, he's very proud of the team, is open and honest about it being an Olympics of great and horrible emotion for him. Stands straight and tall during the medal ceremony.

That wraps up competition for NBC; time for the closing ceremony to start. Odd, Dan Hicks--why not Mary Carillo? She's got such great chemistry with Bob. Odd, she also left Wimbledon before the final Sunday. This is a bad pairing, Hicks is pretty stiff, trying too hard to be like Bob. Joshua Cooper Ramo is back with us, says it's all about circles, and joy.

Firewords in the air count down to zero, and more fireworks like crazy. Lots of people waving orange fans in the stands. British PM Gordon Brown's in the stands, like Bush sitting in the fans' seats.

Maybe more than a million volunteers here at the games Bob says?! That's startling; nice that this is the first we're hearing that. More drums, this time in a circle, all in red; women in orange dresses come marching in in columns, now running to encircle the drums. It is just visually stunning. Huge drums float in, two drummers on it. Everything is so aesthetically and geometrically pleasing. The women are wearing tons of bells, hearing them rattling now. Hicks is bad at this, sounds forced when he makes remarks.

Some weirdly artistic contraptions are wheeled in; then more, guys riding what look like giant hamster wheels, all lit up; it looks spectacular as the stadium goes dark and the people form paths. Joshua points out this has a more modern, future feel than the opening.

Wow, the timing of all this is amazingly precise, thousands of performers forming intricate patterns, one right after another. Now you have peple on high-tech stilts, jumping waaaay up in the air.

It's this kind of discipline and hard work that explain China's amazing gold medal success here, and in the world economy.

Now the athletes come running in, from all directions--they come in together, but mix it up as they have ever since a Chinese-Australian boy wrote a letter to the Melbourne Olympics organizers suggesting it.

Some of the athletes are wearing shirts with messages written on them. Costas says it's estimated China spent $40 billion in all on these games. Wow. That's like 4 months of the war in Iraq.

Couple of kids drumming in the middle of the stage, for some reason. Athletes are waring their medals; lots of cameras; big-time waving to and mugging for the cameras. Odd, some guys being carried by others, not sure I've ever seen that.

U.S. team comes in, wearing Ralph Loren shorts. Frenchies coming in. Wow, Shawn Johnson, beaming like usual; looks really short among her fellow athletes. Wow, the Lopez siblings, three of them, coached by their older brother, all medaled.

On the replay of the 100M win by Bolt, notice Ato in high emotion saying "Tom Hammond..." to start his comments. Hmm, Phelps' mom in a commercial, complete with family photos, for Johnsons.

Frenetic Chinese athletes, dancing and doing the V sign for the camera. A lot of dancing going on. It's actually funny how aggressively the athletes are mugging for the camera.

51 gold medals for China, 100 overall. U.S. has 36, 110 overall. Wow, an entire stage, complete with red carpet, has been set up--overhead, looks like a giant medal. 72 for Russia overall. Yao Ming's in the house. Hugs a really tall blonde woman. Hi Mum some Commonwealth athlete wrote on her hands. 14-year-old Haley Ishimatsu hamming it up with a bunch of new friends.

And now the medal ceremony for the men's marathon, on the stage in front of everyone. This will be a great moment, his fellow Olympians gathered around to watch Samy Wanjiru get his gold. Big, huge smile.

No way, by the way, Chicago will get the 2016 games, they won't go to two straight English-speaking countries. My guess is Rio.

Tribute to the volunteers, Costas repeats again the million estimate. IOC athletes commission come in holding hands with super-cute Chinese kids in bright Disney-esque outfits, Bob calls them almost-impossibly adorable. Hey, they got hundreds of millions to choose from.... Wow, third time, Costas repeats estimates of a million involved. Is he getting old? Or just too long of a gig....

Hmm, so far all of the Performances of the Games they're replaying are of Americans. So retitle it, just be accurate.

Raise the Greek flag, and now their anthem.

Lin Qi, head of the Beijing organizing committee, Joshua gives us the sense of what he's saying--the flame will live in the hearts of the Chinese for a long time. Xie xie, thanks you, merci beaucoup at the end.

Now Jacque Rogge, who's up for reelection next year. Let's see if he calls it the best games ever, like Juan Antonio Samarach always did, until Atlanta. He calls it "truly exceptional games", the crowd roars. In French, I declare it closed, assemble four years from now in London.

Ah, now the Brits have their flag up and anthem played. London 2012 will be very different; a faded empire putting together a patchwork games I predict, with individual star power and 'tradition' to paper over the rough spots. If they're smart, they'll run it as the world's Olympics, make London's amazing diversity the centerpiece. But it could also be the last, arrogant gasp of Anglo-Saxon culture.

226 kids from around the world performing the Olympic hymn as the Olympics flag comes down. A lot of them are Asian. For some reason some of the Russian athletes have their shirts unbuttoned.

Fireworks, Olympic rings, in color. The Olympic flag not folded super-crisply. Boris Johnson, flamboyant mayor of London, walks in with the mayor of Beijing. Costas credits the ex-mayor, Ken Livingston, who actually is responsible for London getting the Games.

Joshua makes a nice point, Chinese are thinking of the last handover, of Hong Kong. Chinese mayor waves the flag, big-time. To Rogge, who waves it too. Now to Boris, who tries to unfurl it, then starts waving it, as his PM beams. He's not sure what to do, gives it to a Chinese flag bearer.

Oh, cool, now Mary Carillo is taking over, as Bob leaves for the studio. And a double-decker hi-tech red London bus comes driving in; that's pretty cool. London-Beijing-London on the side. A bunch of Brits, 'waiting' for the bus, with umbrellas; some cyclists come in, they're Olympians. Funny, let's highlight the rain. The group is very politically correct, and Bohemian.

Bus door opens, South Asian girl comes out; that's awesome; gets the soccer ball from a multicultural Chinese girl. Walks on the backs of the performers, up to the bus--that's a bit odd. Whooo, bus opening up, turns green, carpetingish, London skyline. And out comes pop star Leona Lewis, in a huge dress, way up on a platform.

And rising next to her is Jimmy Page of Led Zepplin, wailing on his guitar. Yeah, it's going to be a very different Olympics. Some mike problems on her; he just looks old and tired. Song isn't very good. It looks like she's lip-synching.

Yeah, totally underwhelming so far. No sense of great excitement to this. Athletes just standing around; performers have their umbrellas open. Lift comes up, along with David Beckham. He kicks the ball into the crowd, one of the Chinese volunteers gets it, she's totally beaming.

Hmm, London will become the first city to get it three times. As I precited, they're gonna do these games with tape and chewing gum--even their stars didn't do anything Olympian, just showed up.

Now the Chinese back in charge, actors playing athletes leaving at the airport, go up a boarding stairway, with backpacks; two white, one black. No Asian? They stand at the top, spotlit, look longingly up at the flame, one guy opens a scroll. Maybe the chick is Hispanic.

They play images from the games on the scrim around the edges of the stadium. Spectators waving red lights. Very theatrical, two performers in chalk undulating. First time the whole thing's been performed in the stadium, all constructed in the last few hours.

Highlights are day by day, now they're coming up to the flame. Kids are singing; crowd applauds, the memories fade out, the flame begins to dim down. And now it's out, as a murmur runs through the crowd; then, applause. Nightime shots of Beijing, looking beautiful. Fireworks erupting now.

The 'memory tower' is now filled with people undulating, it looks like the flame; come to life. Nobody is ever going to come close to topping these games. Zhang Yimou is a genius at this kind of thing. One guy climbs to the top; athletes are transfixed. Performers form a blooming flower on the side, wow.

Down some come, rest are on levels, moving. They have ropes attached, so they're gonna jump. Now everyone else comes swarming back up the tower. They carry long strips of cloth to the top; it really all looks spectacular, in red. Cloths are lifted up and out, like it's floating. Fireworks over Beijing.

It's spectacular, not sure it has the grand symbolic sweep and inherent understanding of the opening ceremony; those athletes at the top of the airport staircase were literally left hanging.

They're singing the catchy Beijing Beijing, Wo Ai Beijing song. Some young bubble gum group. Like all non-American pop, the performances are slightly forced and a bit cheesy. Hundreds of performers on the erhu join in, nice touch. Whoah, now the people are flying off the steel tower on wires. It'd be nice if NBC put the words up on the screen for non-Chinese speakers.

More Chinese singing, as performers in skysuits fly around on wires. They look great, lit up against the night. Wonder if viewers tuning in for the Democratic convention will subconsciously expect similarly high production values. I mean, even Obama in a stadium is going to pale besides this, visually.

This is a bit pointless; China's biggest pop star Wei Wei is wailing away. Now it's a big dance party or something; with Jackie Chan up on stage singing. That's hilarious. It's all Chinese songs--good luck trying to get people to dance to it. It's like a produced dance party, with a ring of volunteers separating the performers from the athletes.

Odd, NBC isn't roving around the floor anymore, now would be a great time to talk to Olympians. Wow, now it's like Chinese rap or something. This is communism?! I predict there will be a big trend of Olympic-style parties/weddings sweeping China now.

Well, one thing the Brits should be able to do better is the music. This is like those variety show spectacles you always click past on the Chinese language cable channel.

Fireworks all over China; and now, in London--Michael Phelps! Cause the Brits can't get their own Olympian?! Wow, this is weird. There's a huge crowd gathered for something, the BBC feed identifies him as '14x Olympic champion'. The host guy is an idiot, typical foppish Brit who overplays his hand in fawning all over Phelps. For some reason a bunch of girls start squealing halfway through. And in comes an overfly of jets; red/white/blue for London 2012. What an odd segment.

Now Placido Domingo and Song Zuying sing a duet; she's in this crazy ornate dress. Like the Brits/Phelps, it's a gloss of Western 'culture' for Beijing. Lot different feeling on the way up than on the way down, though.

Now on the floor, Andrea Joyce and Shawn Johnson. She says it's been amazing, the coolest thing ever; her typical teen side comes out. Joyce says you're a rock star here, Johnson says it's the best experience ever. Hmm, weird-looking Marty Snider with Garrett Weber-Galer, member of the great swimming relay team. Odd interview to get. He's a horrible interviewer, just pumping him for trite responses.

This is so weird--the best part of this is the chance to see athletes with friends from other countries. Why not show that? They replay that Bolt 200M, that may be the most absolutely dominant performance here, as Ato says, maybe the greatest performance ever in track and field, just in a league of his own.

Chris Collinsworth talks about getting to be just a fan, meeting the people of China, loved it all. His memorable moments; he's replaced Jimmy Roberts for these appropriate essays. Hanging with Debbie Phelps; Dara Torres' torn swimsuit rescue; Natalie du Toi's prosthetic leg; USA basketball. Yao Ming and the other Chinese athletes; Chris says these games were so personal for the Chinese, we'll never see anything like it.

Bob says the Chinese fans also cheered loudly for foreign athletes. Chris says 'hope' is the key word that came out of the Olympics for him. Wow, hope all those swing voters are watching. Chris says at least for two weeks, we get to say, this world is a pretty good place.

Costas says this Olympics, and the foreseeable future, are about China's rise. If nothing else, the Olympics have moved China from its grouping with India, to a grouping with the U.S. and Russia.

Storylines... U.S. won more medals then ever at any non-American Olympics, but China easily won more golds than anyone. 204 nations participated, 87 won medals, the most ever. So the people of the world came to Beijing; and the people of China extended their hand. Costas says this has been the most memorable in many ways of all his Olympics.

They close with images of China, and Olympic moments; with credits next to it. Hmm, they read the top four, never seen that before. Hmmm, the highlights storylines to start are of U.S. athletes, and also Chinese athletes. Then they mix in highlights and moments of despair from everyone, some of which I hadn't seen before.

So, bye-bye Beijing. A great 17 days that exceeded everyone's expectations, and hopes. I watched every night, and many days, loved it all. It's one of those moments in world history as remarkable now as it will be in the books.

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My favorite announcers from the games, in order:
-Ato Bolton, track and field analyst: Always learned something new from listening to him, conveyed his passion for the sport, and spot-on with his criticisms and observations. Loved his exulting moments, also when he called out athletes. The best NBC journalist of the Games.

-Rowdy Gaines, swimming analyst: Like Ato another ex-athlete who brought great knowledge, excitement, and insight--he made the big moments even bigger, and got me up every night for what was a great Olympics for the American team

-Doug Collins, baskeball analyst: I've always liked him; he's very analytical but also appropriately emotional about the sport he loves, it's telling that the USA men's team came over and hugged him right after their win

-Mary Carillo, anchor: She's honest, genuine, and sincere. And always finds great stories.

-Bob Costas, anchor: Smooth and professional as always, funny, generally appropriate, and someone who you can tell loves being in the thick of things. He and Jim McKay are the consummate Olympics anchors.

-Chris Collinsworth, reporter: He was a bit outside his comfort zone, but always made an effort to convey the spirit of the games. He asks great questions, gets out of the way.

-Craig Sager, basketball reporter: I never liked him before Beijing, thought he was a quasi-ridiculous figure with his demeanor and outfits. But listening to him interview Kobe Bryant after the gold medal game, realizes he asks great questions, and brings out the heart of the moment.

-Al Trautwig/Elfi Schlegel/Tim Dagget, gymnastics: Very jingoistic at times, but always knowledgable and generally accurate in their assessments of performances. They did a good job of being quiet to let us soak up the big moments.

Notable moments from the Beijing Olympics
*-Amazing sound and light spectacle of the Opening Ceremony drums performance, the 'printing blocks' that were moved by humans, the roar of thousands doing tai chi, the hi-tech flexible LED screen, Hungary's red dalmation outfits, the paint all the athletes walked across, the amazing reception the crowd gave China's team, Yao and the earthquake kid hero, Li Ning flying through the air to light the scroll torch.

-President Bush in the stands like a normal fan

-John McCain's jarringly-inappopriate attack ad against Barack Obama

*-Lezak's leg in the men's relay to catch Bernard at the wall; my gosh....

-U.S. gymnastics men going crazy afer winning the bronze, after being counted out by everyone due to pre-Olympics injuries

-Yang Wei winning gold in the high bar, and cackling for the camera; during the gymnastics showcase, does this whole funny pommel 'horse' routine

-Elegant Nastia Liukin winning overall individual gold at literally the last moment, just ahead of firecracker Shawn Johnston

-Crazy Bela Karolyi in the studio, and NBC's tape of him going nuts during Liukin's routine

-Target's commercial, which led me to Natasja Saad's great Calabria video

-Rebecca Soni winning the 200M breastroke, in what consistently excellent announcer Rowdy Gaines said may be the swimming upset of the games

-Classy Mary Carillo's emotional profile of the Chinese artist who designed the logo and mascots

*-Michael Phelps outtouching Milorad Cavitch at the wall to win the 100M butterfly by .01 seconds for gold #7

-Brit Rebecca Adlington smashing Janet Evans' 19-year-old record in the 800M free

-Classy and geniune Dara Torres winning silver in 50M freestyle, just .01 seconds from gold, at the age of 41, after holding up the race to make sure a fellow competitor could replace her busted suit

*-Usain Bolt in yellow winning the 100M, showboating to deny himself an even greater world record time but providing the signature track and field moment of this Olympics

-Michael Phelps winning his 8th gold medal; an unbelievable run of domination

-U.S. men sweeping 400M hurdles, with a great, humble interview afterwards

-NBC's head-in-the-sand jingoism after Nastia Liukin ties for gold on the uneven bars and gets silver due to the tiebreaker system, which NBC suddenly deems unfair

*-Shawn Johnson beaming and beaming and beaming after winning her gold on the balance beam, with her Chinese-born coach as happy, and her parents, who mortgaged their home twice for her gymnastics, crying in the stands

-Jonathan Horton grabbing silver on the high bar

-Lolo Jones crying, alone, standing up against a wall under the stadium after hitting the next-to-last hurdle and finishing out of the 100M hurdles medals.

-Kerri Walsh/Misty May-Treanor's second beach volleyball gold in as many Olympics, during which they never dropped a set, which ran their match winning streak to 108; Walsh's nutty "I need a baby" declaration after getting the gold

-Chris Collinsworth's typical well-done profile of Natalie du Toit, the South African open water swimmer who lost a leg in 2001

-Usain Bolt's jaw-dropping 200M record run, with the U.S. moving up to silver and bronze on DQs

-Phil Dalhausser/Todd Rogers' grind-it-out gold in beach volleyball against Brazil, with May-Treanor sitting in the stands wearing a Chinese dragon peasant hat

-Hurdles champ Cuban Dayron Robles's old-school glasses; and the Nike Marvin 'definition of cool' Gaye national anthem commercial

-USA women's volleyball's run to silver, with their Chinese-born coach, who got standing ovations since she led a legendary Chinese volleyball gold medal team

*-Wanjiru's blistering marathon, for Kenya

-Aussie Matthew Mitcham's great final dive that kept China from winning all 8 diving golds

-U.S. track team wearing red on the last day to honor China

-Sanya Richards' great last leg to win the 4x400 relay for the U.S.

-From the closing credits: They show Liu Xiang crying by himself against the wall after he had to pull out of the hurdles, and a Chinese official breaking down in the press conference afterwards; hadn't seen the latter before, wow. Also that German weightlifter crying after winning the gold, holding his dead wife's photo on the podium.

-USA Basketball beating Spain for gold, behind Kobe's killer late fourth quarter, and putting their gold medals around Coach K's neck

*-Hugh McCutcheon and his men's volleyball team winning gold, bookending tragedy with triumph