There’s a conventional wisdom, unless perhaps you work in Downing Street, that to deflect attention from something bad you throw a really big party.
Splashing the cash is recommended when inviting friend or foe in a bid to curry some favour or win some influence – and this show is reportedly costing £9bn and counting.
So here we are, back in Beijing, 14 years later as the Chinese capital becomes the first city to stage both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
When the five-ringed circus last pitched its big tent here, there were some lofty words about how it would change the world’s most populous country.
Former International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Jacques Rogge expressed a hope that the scrutiny of the world would open up the nation.
And perhaps he was right, because China have dropped one place outside the unwanted medals in the World Press Freedom Index, with Eritrea, North Korea and Turkmenistan claiming the podium places. Progress more funereal than slow.
Coincidentally Norway ranks best, just as they are expected to here, with confident predictions of more than 40 medals.
The last time Beijing hosted, the star was a certain Jamaican sprinter, now the IOC are running just as fast as Usain Bolt from some uncomfortable truths.
In 2008 Rogge played the diplomatic straight bat to perfection, being “gravely concerned”, while parroting the line that the Olympics are a catalyst for change, not a panacea for all ills.
And not much is different now, his successor Thomas Bach still has his talking points. This week he somehow conflated genocide with a “political dispute”, while standing under a banner that proclaimed “Together for a Shared Future” – marketing people for provincial building societies can have that one for free.
There’s false snow here and a whole lot of false promises too, though it’s worth noting the only rival to Beijing’s bid for these Games was Kazakhstan capital Almaty, who campaigned without irony under the slogan “Keeping it real”. Last month hundreds, including a four-year-old girl, died there in anti-government protests.
It’s hard to keep sport and politics apart or find a segue from the above to Johannes Lamparter’s hopes in the Nordic Combined but we’ll have to try.
This opening night show lacked the scale of director Zhang Yimou’s 2008 epic, with its 15,000 strong cast and £74m budget.
However, in front of a half-full Bird’s Nest, it wasn’t without charm and character, with a soundtrack lifted from the Last Night of the Proms, though never have the lyrics “Land of hope and glory, mother of the free” seemed quite so incongruous.
Obviously there were fireworks and lights – which are as essential a part of the Olympic opening ceremony checklist as flags and flames these days.
Speeches promised a “joyous rendezvous” while “gracious hosts” were thanked and two junior members of the Chinese team were the final torchbearers, though the low-key cauldron lighting was always going to struggle to match Li Ning’s iconic daredevil high-wire act in 2008.
According to a 42-page manual, the “overall aesthetic tone” of this show was “snowy white, romantic, pure and beautiful” while abiding to the overall creative principles of “simple, safe and wonderful”.
Sometimes you wonder whether these Olympic brand experts just bang inspiring words into Google and look for as many synonyms as possible.
Of course there are question marks about the stage, just as there will be later this year in Qatar or when any sport tips up in a country looking to launder their image in sweat. Sport, especially the Olympics, has long followed the money, and little will change until that does.
But we shouldn’t forget the actors in this play have no choice where to perform and it’s too simplistic to demand they stay at home and watch on television as someone else lives their dreams.
They say it takes 10,000 hours to make an Olympian, these days it takes a lot of PCR tests too – everyone here has their tonsils “tickled” every day to keep a second pandemic Games in six months safe and healthy.
There are 2,871 athletes from 91 countries in tracksuits at these Games and a whole lot more organisers in Hazmat suits too. Higher, faster, stronger – and stranger too.
Curling’s Eve Muirhead and alpine skier Dave Ryding led in a delegation of 56 British team members – more than who attended the Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo Games just 196 days ago.
On snow and ice, there are high hopes of matching – even bettering – the five medals won in the two previous Games of Sochi and Pyeongchang.
They’ll slip and slide, thrill and spill and it’ll be worth setting the alarm and sacrificing some sleep for. Because there is nothing quite like the Winter Olympics, even if you don’t know your triple salchow from your cork 360, your slap shot from your hack or your huck.
Trust the process, in a fortnight you’ll be earnestly discussing why the Norwegians gave up the hammer in the eighth end or the best line to take into corner 13.
To use the vernacular of those effortlessly cool “Fridge Kids”, who learned their dizzying trade in Britain’s indoor snow domes, it is totally possible to not be “stoked” about the government of our hosts, while still thinking these athletes are “totally rad”.
Watch All the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 live on discovery+, Eurosport and Eurosport app
