Olympian Ambitions

All Olympic gold shines brilliantly, though not all equally so. Of China's 32 gold medals at the 2004 Athens Games, none was as lustrous as 20-year-old Liu Xiang's in the 110-meter hurdles, the first-ever gold for a Chinese man in Olympic track-and-field competition.

It wasn't that China didn't value its gold-medal athletes in sports at which it had long excelled—diving, table tennis and badminton among them. But those sports are of limited interest to much of the world and, crucially, to the companies that have transformed Chinese sports into a $5 billion industry. Liu's triumph was celebrated in China just like Yao Ming's selection as the No. 1 pick in the NBA draft two years earlier—a breakthrough in a sport in which Chinese athletes had been invisible.

Today Liu is arguably the most popular man in China and indisputably the most visible. His face is everywhere—on magazine covers, billboards and milk cartons. He cavorts on music videos with the hottest female stars and boasts an A-list of international sponsors, including Nike and Visa. Most important of all, Liu now stands as the symbol of China's hopes and dreams for its Beijing Olympics in August. "Everything here is about 2008," says Terry Rhoads, cofounder of Shanghai-based ZOU Marketing.

Although all host countries hope to excel in Olympic competition, far more is at stake in Beijing than athletic supremacy. Beijing is a target for a host of international grievances—human rights, environmental practices, food and manufacturing safety. The Games are its chance to sell the world on a more benevolent vision of China. "We will see an entire nation perform a carefully choreographed dance," says Jin Yuanpu, head of an Olympics study center at the People's University of China. "Each athlete knows that his individual struggle is unimportant when compared to the larger struggle of China to impress the world."

But athletics remains the centerpiece. Ever since the Games were awarded to China, the country has envisioned the Olympics as the stage on which it would establish its preeminence. China's goal: to rank as the top nation in gold medals, a spot the United States has held since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Jim Scherr, CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee, sees the Chinese challenge as both real and meaningful. "The world focuses on gold-medal count as the measure of the teams," says Scherr, "and we certainly think it's important to stay on top." At Athens 2004, China fielded a young team—80 percent of its athletes were Olympic rookies—and despite totaling 40 fewer medals than the U.S. team, it captured just three fewer golds.

But even as China seems poised to knock the United States off its Olympic perch—if not in Beijing, then in 2012 or 2016—this athletic rivalry hasn't engendered the passions that America vs. the Soviet Union once did. Political tensions and ideological animosity are nowhere near as heated. The two nations also excel in different sports. There are only a few Olympic events—diving, women's gymnastics and women's soccer—where an American gold medal might come at the expense of the Chinese or vice versa.