Feeling Jaded About The Olympic Green

So far, sad to say, the much-heralded Green, which was given a stunning four-page foldout spread in Sports Illustrated, is a lifeless monument to itself. How can anything so big, expensive and, in its way, stunningly beautiful be so dysfunctional and hostile to the people who use it? Or is that a metaphor?

Worst of all, the Green is pure death to any hint of authentic Olympic spirit that might bloom here.

But then what do you expect when they hold the Olympics inside what amounts to a military compound. It takes a media bus 25 minutes to drive one mile from the Beijing Tibet Hotel to the media center. You could walk it in less. But with fenced-off streets, you can't get there from here. The bus follows a maze of indirect checkpoints and entirely circles the Green before finally penetrating it after passing the last set of guards standing at all-day attention.

This Olympics is a masterpiece of efficiency and punctuality for those with tickets, credentials or black Audis. But the undisguised hostility and distrust of anyone who hasn't been vetted, crossed-checked and X-rayed is palpable. At one the end of the Olympic Green is a forest. Except there's a sign in front that says, "The Olympic Forest Is Closed." Unless you have the right credential.

At my four previous Olympics, there has always been one gathering spot that captured the "Olympic experience," with people of many nations mingling, with warm-and-fuzzy feelings everywhere and Olympic pins being exchanged. Perhaps the day's medal winners are honored at an outdoor flag-raising ceremony. Barcelona's all-night parties along the main boulevard (Las Ramblas) were as authentic as the Olympic spirit can get. The park in Atlanta in '96 was enthusiastic and jammed before the bombing.

Even since 9/11 there have been two Winter Olympics that managed to maintain this traditional feeling, according to Post reporters who were in Salt Lake City and Turin, Italy. The '04 Games in Athens can't be evaluated. The Greeks never finished building the thing. Just a mess.

This weekend, when track and field in the Bird's Nest begins before swimming in the Water Cube has finished, should energize the Green. But what if it doesn't?

After the Opening Ceremonies, with fireworks that could be seen throughout much of Beijing, people fell asleep in public parks all over town after the last rocket glare died at muggy midnight. That felt like the Olympics.

Since then, with some sports at remote sites but most of the serious action adjacent to the Green, this Olympics has felt like a gigantic movie back lot with just enough well-frisked, seldom-smiling extras wandering around the place to fool the world into thinking it's the real thing.

The contests here, and the medal winners, are the real thing. But for those in attendance, there's a sense of facade. From afar, no city could look more like the home of a scintillating energized Games. Or, as you walk the empty Olympic Green, feel less like it up close.