Hours after Olympic hurdles champion Liu Xiang saw his world record fall to Cuban Dayron Robles, a Chinese newspaper tried to console him and also lower the nation's great expectations.
"Losing the record takes the pressure off," read a headline last week on the Web site of Titan, China's top sports newspaper.
Liu has been viewed in China as a cinch in the 110-meter hurdles at the Beijing Olympics, the only gold medal China is favored to win in track and field. Instead, he lost his world record and he's also nursing an injured hamstring.
Like Liu, the Beijing Olympics are limping. Viewed as a sure thing until three months ago, they're now seven weeks away and hurting.
Despite promises of freedom to report, foreign broadcasters are battling China's communist government and security officials for permission to move reporters and equipment as they have in previous Olympics.
IOC president Jacques Rogge met Monday with other top International Olympic Committee officials, trying to unsnarl requests from Chinese officials for more paperwork to allow technical broadcasting equipment to enter China. Much of the paperwork is under review at the top level of China's one-party state.
"I must say we are well advanced in resolving the issues," Rogge told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Thursday. "It will take a couple of days to finalize everything. Things are moving extremely well to resolve these issues."
Fellow IOC member Kevan Gosper, chairman of the IOC Press Commission, said after meeting with Rogge that China was presenting special problems.
"We have to recognize that when we are calling for final requirements it's got to be in a very detailed fashion," Gosper said. "It's just more difficult dealing with the Chinese bureaucracy than it is in normal circumstances."
Deadly rioting that broke out March 14 in Tibet _ and Steven Spielberg's withdrawal in February as artistic adviser for the opening ceremony to protest what he saw as China's refusal to do more to help end the humanitarian crisis in Darfur _ began to change everything in Beijing. Fierce pro-Tibet protests followed on international legs of the torch relay.
Then, a deadly earthquake in May killed at least 70,000 in the western province of Sichuan.
All of this and chronic air pollution have taken much of the shine off Beijing's $40 billion facelift and its stunning Olympic venues. Then there's basketball star Yao Ming, who is nursing an injury, with his prospects uncertain for the opener against the United States.
"I'm proud to be a part of these Olympic Games, but I think with security problems and logistical problems we will not do justice to these games and we will not tell the stories that the Chinese people and the Olympic committee want us to tell," said Scott Moore, executive director of Canada's CBC Sports.
Moore was speaking at a May 29 meeting of rights-holding broadcasters, Chinese organizers and top IOC officials. The Associated Press obtained the minutes of the meeting.
The Beijing Olympics remain popular at home _ driven by relentless promotion in state-run media _ with 500,000 smiling volunteers prepared to welcome about the same number of foreign tourists. Organizers gained some sympathy from the May 12 earthquake, but the Chinese government is losing goodwill abroad with its pervasive security crackdown, hoping to ensure that nothing goes wrong in any phase of the games.
Or, if it goes wrong, Chinese security is trying to make sure it isn't seen on TV.
"China needs to begin lowering the global expectations for the Olympics in August," said Liu Qingzao, a professor at Shanghai Sports University. "It needs to let people know that it will not be 100 percent perfect because it is definitely likely that some things will go wrong."
China's authoritarian government hopes to engineer a flawless Olympics, showing a modern, open country and the rising economic power of the 21st century. China and the IOC maintain the games are only about sports, which even many Chinese know is not accurate.
"It's not just a sports event for any country that holds the Olympics," Liu added. "There is always a political and economic motive behind the Olympics. The major underlying issues are political and economic."
Even if Chinese officials wanted to lower expectations, that's difficult. Still fiercely proud that Beijing will host the games beginning Aug. 8, many Chinese are expecting the country to overtake the United States as the No. 1 gold medal winner.
"It's not just a question of Liu Xiang winning on physical talent, it's also the emotional impact of performing on his home turf," said Tian Jun, a 36-year-old man browsing at a central Beijing shopping mall. "It will inspire him to run that much faster than anyone else."
Simon Shibli, a researcher at Sheffield Hallam University in England, predicts China will top the table with 46 gold medals, gaining many in sports such as rowing, shooting, diving, badminton, women's weightlifting and table tennis. He figures the "home field' advantage will be worth about seven gold medals in sold out arenas packed with cheering Chinese.
In addition to the medal count, Chinese citizens are also watching to see if the government can deliver on pledges to have clean air in one of the world's most polluted cities; to curb protests, and to pull off a flawlessly organized games.
"Lowering expectations will be difficult at this point," Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University, said in an e-mail.
Cha said if things go wrong, Chinese officials would probably attempt to blame "unfair" coverage by the international media. This happened after protests against the torch relay in London, Paris and San Francisco.
Some foreign journalists faced death threats for their coverage. Burgeoning Chinese nationalism, meanwhile, led to boycotts in China of the French supermarket chain Carrefour. Since then, travel to France by Chinese has fallen sharply.
The French Foreign Ministry says this is because Chinese travel agents have been told by government officials to remove France as a destination. Chinese travel officials deny there was any such order.
Cha said Chinese officials would react angrily to any "negative" coverage by the foreign media _ about 30,000 journalists are expected _ during the Olympics. He likened it to 1988 in Seoul, South Korea, when Koreans were upset at coverage that included Koreans eating dog meat.
"The Chinese will want to portray themselves as magnanimous hosts, ultramodern cosmopolitan city dwellers, and great athletes," Cha said. "But if prior games are any indication, there will also be a prickliness in China's behavior in the run-up and during the games where every little thing that does not fit with their well-choreographed event will cause them to be very angry."
Chinese were angered in the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta when NBC commentator Bob Costas brought up human rights issues _ and doping scandals involving Chinese swimmers and track and field athletes _ as the Chinese delegation marched in during the opening ceremony.
"I think this sort of thing is inevitable with China as well since the Chinese already believe that NBC's coverage of China at the Olympics has historically been biased," Cha added.
