by Dan Wetzel
Yahoo!Sports
The Chinese government tried to control everything in the run-up to these Olympics. From architecture to air quality, from restaurant menus to suggested interaction with foreigners, everything was weighed against how it would be perceived.
For China, this is not just a sporting event. This is its window for the world, the chance to define itself as more than a mysterious, communist power rising in the East, more than totalitarianism, human rights abuse and choking pollution. There is simply no comparative event in America that could mean so much or swell such national pride as this. We’re an open society. We’re a known quantity. We’re forever being defined. China is being defined, too, and on Saturday, the first day of these long anticipated and meticulously planned Games, the Chinese learned a lesson.
As desperately as they try, they can’t control everything. A 47-year-old Chinese man, Tang Yongming, stabbed two Americans, killing a man and seriously wounding a woman as well as their Chinese tour guide at the Drum Tower, a popular 13th Century tourist attraction. The Americans are Todd and Barbara Bachman, the in-laws of U.S. men’s indoor volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon and parents of former U.S. women’s volleyball player Elisabeth Bachman.
For full story, go to Yahoo!Sports.
Yahoo!Sports
The Chinese government tried to control everything in the run-up to these Olympics. From architecture to air quality, from restaurant menus to suggested interaction with foreigners, everything was weighed against how it would be perceived.For China, this is not just a sporting event. This is its window for the world, the chance to define itself as more than a mysterious, communist power rising in the East, more than totalitarianism, human rights abuse and choking pollution. There is simply no comparative event in America that could mean so much or swell such national pride as this. We’re an open society. We’re a known quantity. We’re forever being defined. China is being defined, too, and on Saturday, the first day of these long anticipated and meticulously planned Games, the Chinese learned a lesson.
As desperately as they try, they can’t control everything. A 47-year-old Chinese man, Tang Yongming, stabbed two Americans, killing a man and seriously wounding a woman as well as their Chinese tour guide at the Drum Tower, a popular 13th Century tourist attraction. The Americans are Todd and Barbara Bachman, the in-laws of U.S. men’s indoor volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon and parents of former U.S. women’s volleyball player Elisabeth Bachman.
For full story, go to Yahoo!Sports.
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