China full of spirit, empty seats

BEIJING - On TV, the Olympics look like a series of tight camera shots and broad emotions. With a clicker in your hand, you can probably imagine all of the athletes, from Kobe Bryant to Australian athletes named Brad Pitt and Tanya Harding (really) -- rooming together and walking to their venues hand in hand, singing "Kumbaya."

On the ground, these Olympics look much different. This is an event sprawling from Hong Kong to the outer reaches of the immense city of Beijing. The Summer Olympics might be the biggest sporting event in the world, but it feels like a series of small, obscure, sparsely attended contests, many in venues that are glorified TV studios.

Here's a glimpse of the Games from the ground:

The national pasttime

Michael Phelps is the TV star of these Games, and the U.S. basketball players are the biggest international stars, and Yao Ming and hurdler Liu Xiang are the national heroes.

But the heart of these Olympics can be found in the Peking University Gymnasium, when a Chinese star plays table tennis.

This is the indigenous game, a game played early in the morning in parks all over the country. Friday morning, China's Wang Liqin, ranked fourth in the world, took on Australia's William Henzell.

Which means: add fuel.

Wang is tall and muscular, looking more like a power forward than a ping-pong -- excuse me, table tennis -- player. Both men pump their fists after winners, and hit full-body topspin forehands that somehow curl onto the table.

They execute their serves by cradling the ball as if it's in danger of cracking, then drop it toward the table and at the last moment coax it across the net. Call it egg drop serve.

Wang wins a big point when he hits what looks like a pop-up. It floats for long seconds, then finally, miraculously, drops in play. Henzell smashes it, Wang makes a miraculous save, and wins the point, then the match.

"It was very loud in there," Henzell said. "I can't be disappointed. I played the match of my life. I loved it. The crowd was really into it. To play well in front of the Chinese people, against their champion, is special."

It's smothering, really. You can't escape it. It's omnipresent, hovering, relentless.

Yes, the smog. Also, the hospitality of our hosts.

There are young volunteers everywhere at these Olympics, all wearing the coral-red or blue colors of these Olympics, and they are all seemingly affable and gracious and polite. There are at least two of them standing by every doorway. They offer greetings in English and smile and point the way, even outside the bathroom, which they gesture to as if they're Vanna White and the toilet is a Brand New Car!

They've got to stop. We're journalists. We're used to adversarial relationships. We are accustomed to rudeness. Usually, within our ranks.

Communism is an anachronistic ideology, but it seems to have worked at least in this way: producing legions of young people happy to work for nothing.

Just don't try to subvert the rules. As long as you follow the rules, you get smiles and earnest attempts to communicate in English.

After the Venezuelan men's volleyball team lost its first match of the competition, a few players tried to walk directly to the locker room. Three young women volunteers chased and herded them, forcing them to walk a circuitous route past media positions. The players were not happy, but those were the rules.

The fans

Despite the huge population of Beijing and China in general, and the sense of enthusiasm for the Games evident in any neighborhood through which you walk, attendance has been sparse at almost every event I've seen.

The fans are polite and enthusiastic, but there just aren't many of them. The rowing stands were virtually empty, shots of the field hockey and team handball events show lots of empty seats, and even the grudge match between the U.S. and Greek men's basketball teams didn't fill the stands, despite the celebrity of the U.S. players.

The U.S. basketball players draw the biggest cheers and get chased by the most fans. They already have a home-court advantage at the Olympic Basketball Gymnasium, as Chinese fans scream every time Kobe Bryant or LeBron James' name is called.

Thursday night in Beijing, they beat a Greek team that had beaten them two years ago, looking dominant defensively and more cohesive than the defensively challenged team that took the bronze in Athens.

The U.S. team could win the gold medal without running a set offensive play. "This is by design," James said. "We know we can win with our defense. Teams just don't understand how fast we are until they get on the court with us."

This is a neat trick, getting NBA stars to run a full-court press and a half-court trap effectively. On one play Thursday, Dwyane Wade stripped a Greek guard in the backcourt, sprinted after the loose ball, grabbed it just before it went out of bounds and flipped it high toward the rim, where Bryant finished with a resounding dunk.

"We know defense is going to win games for us," Wade said.

Regardless of the attendance, the Games are being played in spectacular venues, from the National Stadium (the Bird's Nest) to the natatorium (the Water Cube).

Former St. John's rower Matt Schnobrich said the rowing and kayaking course, along with the housing, has been "pristine. Best I've ever seen.

"The people are so friendly, and I think the Chinese have done a wonderful job of having people on every corner, like if you have to take a right turn, there will be two people there saying, 'Please, turn right,' and pointing the way.

"That's kind of been the most impressive thing. The people are really excited that we're here, that the Olympics are here, and that's what the Olympics are all about."

Jim Souhan can be heard Sundays from 10 a.m.-noon on AM-1500 KSTP. • jsouhan@startribune.com