China at the Olympics - 1984 (At the dorm)

Thank goodness -- the Libyan team pulled out at the last moment because the State Department would not give visas to some of their journalists. (Games participants did not need visas, but others did.) That left empty the top floor of the dorm housing the Chinese team. As our bus pulled up to the dorm, I explained that there were neither elevators nor porters, and since their rooms were on the second and third floors, each person would have to carry his or her own luggage upstairs. In jest, I suggested that people needing assistance with heavy bags call on the members of the weightlifting team for help. One of the weightlifters quickly replied that they would be quite useless as porters, since they were trained to hold weights overhead for only a few seconds after which they would fling them to the ground!

There were no problems with the housing, but one arrangement which was not altogether welcome to at least some Chinese athletes was the fact that the dining halls were in separate buildings from the dorms. At first I was mystified as to what the problem could possibly be -- the distance from the dorm to the nearest dining hall was a very short one, and the weather in Los Angeles was positively balmy both day and night at that time of year. Surely nobody in such top physical condition could get tired walking to and from meals? I later discovered that Olympians are indeed thoroughbreds -- just as a top-of-the-line sports car performs poorly in stop-and-go city traffic, so too someone who thinks nothing of a 5,000 km run can find a short walk tiring.

China at the Olympics - 1984 (Team's arrival)

Contrary to what many people think, the contingents representing their countries at the opening ceremonies are usually only a portion of their respective delegations. Because Olympic competition is spread out over two weeks, generally only the teams in the earlier events arrive in time for the opening, while those in the later events get to participate in the closing ceremonies. (In LA, this also helped save on costs, as there was a modest daily fee for each person staying in the Olympic Villages.) Nonetheless, China had one of the largest delegations, so when the first group of athletes arrived, it involved a sizable number of people.

The team's charter flight arrived at LAX and disgorged its passengers without incident at the special terminal area reserved for the Games. There were pro-Taiwan demonstrators waiting for them, but they had no access to the restricted areas and were probably not even noticed by the mainlanders. We dutifully informed the team officials that regular baggage would come off the conveyor belt, but oversize and unusual items would be treated as freight and brought separately to a warehouse where they could be claimed later in the day. Even so, the main logistics person was too nervous to fully understand what this meant. Once most of their personal luggage had been retrieved from the carousel, he anxiously sought me out and declared that we were on the verge of a catastrophe because many important items were lost. The fact that "many" were missing was reassuring -- it's when a single piece cannot be found that one really begins to worry. When I asked him what was lost, he listed all the cases containing the oars of the rowing teams, the guns of the shooting teams and the bows and arrows of the archery teams! He calmed down after I reminded him that these were considered "unsual" items and had been sent to the warehouse. Within a few minutes, however, he came back tenser than ever and announced that the special present they had brought for the IOC to mark the occasion of the PRC's Olympic debut was nowhere to be found. Again, his nervousness had gotten the better of him, and when he described the missing gift to be an 18-foot long tapestry, I managed to suppress a chortle before again assuring him that we could go to the warehouse that very evening and pick it up. Despite the fact that nothing in the warehouse would be needed in the next day or two, and despite how tired he was from the long flight, it came as no surprise that he insisted on going to the warehouse at the earliest possible time. Of course everything was there and in good order, and I suppose that this was the wisest thing to do anyway, since he probably would not have gotten any sleep until he was reunited with all the "missing" baggage.

The Chinese team was one of the largest ones at the Games and had to be housed on one-and-a-half floors of a dorm, as no building had enough rooms on a single floor to accommodate so many people. Each floor had a spacious living area with a large TV, refrigerator and stove, so the one on the floor exclusively occupied by the Chinese could, in essence, become their private rec room. The advance team seemed quite satisfied with the individual rooms. The organizers noted that each team was also assigned an extra room in its dorm to be used for medical treatments, and it came equipped with an examining table and some basic supplies. There were, of course, fully equipped medical facilities elsewhere in the Olympic Village, so these rooms were only intended for minor injuries like sprains, etc. which could be readily handled by team doctors.

To the utter astonishment of us all, the Chinese advance team requested over a dozen extra examining tables, and when asked where they were to be placed, they replied that they could all just be crammed into their "private" living room! The LAOOC representative asked in alarm whether they were really anticipating such an incredible number of injuries, and we were all relieved to hear that these were to be used for traditional Chinese medical massages, which are popular with athletes (even when they have no injuries) as they help relax the muscles and speed recovery. Hence, once the competition started, the living room became a strange scene where some people sat around the periphery watching TV and chatting, while others lay on tables in the center of the room receiving massages. Moreover, the stove was constantly in use, either for cooking up vast quantities of instant noodles or for boiling various herbal concoctions -- probably the most unusual living room scene in the entire Village.

China at the Olympics - 1984

Looking back at the debut of the People's Republic at the Olympics -- 1984, Los Angeles. My how times have changed! That was the year people discovered that it was actually possible for the Games to not lose money, let alone come out ahead. The IOC practically had to beg someone -- anyone! -- to host the Games after they nearly bankrupted Montreal and other previous hosts. As a result, the LAOOC didn't have to build a new Olympic Village to get the Games, and could make do with many existing facilities, including some that had been built for the 1932 Olympics. 1984 was eventful in so many other ways -- the Soviet boycott, and the arrival of the mainland Chinese. The latter came only after a bitter debate over both the status and the name, of the delegation from Taiwan. (They finally settled on the awkward "Chinese Taipei." To this day I wonder what would have happened if Taiwan had insisted that the PRC likewise accept the name "Chinese Beijing." Might the argument have been prolonged a bit?) China was new and fascinating in those days, and there was an element of gratitude that such a large team should participate for the first time especially just when the Soviets had withdrawn, so excitement was in the air.

I was one of two "envoys" of the LAOOC to the Chinese delegation -- a fancy word for someone who does whatever it takes to meet the needs of the team. One of my first tasks was to take a small advance team around the UCLA campus, where the Chinese would be housed. Not surprisingly, security was a major concern -- they were obviously worried that some pro-Taiwan elements might make trouble for them. Not coincidentally, the Taiwanese team was housed miles away on the USC campus, and security was tight enough that it would be hard for outsiders to gain access to the parts of the UCLA campus used for housing and competition. Instead, we discovered a wholly unexpected headache, namely that the Libyan team was to be housed on the top floor of the same dorm as the Chinese! Sino-Libyan relations were normal at the time, but there were tensions between Libya and most Western nations, which regarded Col. Gaddafi as a sponsor of terrorism. On paper at least, the Libyan Olympic delegation certainly seemed a bit strange. It was only entered in one event -- an equestrian competition -- but featured one horse and a profusion of "grooms." The Israeli team was living on the same campus but in a different building. There would have to be a ridiculous number of people keeping an eye on each and every member of the Libyan delegation (which fortunately was a small one!) and making sure they did not get close to the Israelis, but this meant that everyone assign to the same dorm as the Libyans, including the first-time Chinese, would essentially be living under intense surveillance. A fine way for the Chinese to be introduced to the Games!