本届奥运会最无悬念的胜利，在上周五得到确认：中国摘得开幕式竞赛的“金牌”，想必把有史以来任何奥运会开幕式拿来比较都是如此。
　　从来没有一个国家能够赶上中国在奥运开幕式上投入的精力、人力、协同、独创性，以及(不得不提的)财力，也许将来也一定赶不上。曾几何时，奥运开幕式只是一场大型运动会之前的小表演，而如今它已成为一场巨大的表演和盛况。
　　经过4小时令人震撼(即便似乎有点没完没了)的表演与仪式，中国国家主席胡锦涛正式宣布第29届奥运会开幕。
　　然后，夜色中的“鸟巢”最终落入——更准确地说是升至——纯粹的矫揉造作：已从体操运动员转行成为商人的李宁，在吊车的帮助下升至“鸟巢”顶部，接着以飞人姿势绕场一周，最后点燃主火炬。这个特技看上去用的过多了。
　　除此之外，首场胜利属于开幕式的导演张艺谋。人们对奥运开幕式的期望提高，至少可追溯到迪斯尼特色的1984洛杉矶奥运。但北京奥运的开幕式达到顶点，展现了令人惊叹的雄心。
　　其主题采用传统的题材：具有中国特色的民族主义。但张艺谋以空前的场面演绎了这一切，他巧妙地利用“鸟巢”体育馆的设计来达到表演效果，还拥有预算方面的自由。中国媒体所提的5000万英镑预算，似乎严重低估了实际开支。这场表演由2008名鼓手开场，此后的表演气势更为恢宏。
　　相比之下，4年后伦敦奥运的开幕式会不可避免地看上去像是业余演出，而明智的伦敦人则不会希望有人会想跟北京奥运比排场。毕竟，5000万英镑能够买到不少新的公共汽车。

　　The most certain victory of the Olympic Games was duly ratified on Friday when China won the gold medal in the opening ceremony competition – presumably for all time.
　　No country ever has – or surely will – match the Chinese in the effort, human power, synchronicity, ingenuity and, it has to be said, money they were willing to put into what was once a little show to start a big sporting event. Now it is an enormous show and a gigantic event.
　　And after an awesome if seemingly interminable four hours of performance and ceremonial, President Hu Jintao of China formally declared the games of the 29th Olympiad open.
　　Then the evening finally descended – or rather ascended – into pure kitsch when the gymnast-turned-businessman Li Ning was winched up to roof level to complete a lap of vertigo and light the flame. It seemed like one trick too many.
　　Otherwise the first triumph belonged to the evening's auteur Zhang Yimou. Inflation of expectations at opening ceremonies began at least with the Disneyfication of the games at Los Angeles in 1984. Last night it reached its apex with a show of astounding ambition.
　　The theme was along traditional lines: nationalism with Chinese characteristics. But Zhang executed it all with unprecedented panache – cunningly using the design of the Bird's Nest stadium for his purposes – and budgetary freedom. The £50m mentioned in the Chinese media seemed like a gross underestimate. This was a show that began with 2,008 drummers, and then got more ambitious.
　　London four years hence will inevitably seem like amateur dramatics in comparison and sensible Londoners would hope that no one would even try to match it. Fifty million could buy quite a few new buses.

　　尽管“鸟巢”美丽，但在开幕式中扮演的角色相对次要。场内9.1万名观众也许感觉不到曾令《纽约时报》(New York Times)建筑评论员兴高采烈的“分层的亲密空间”，此公想必是安排来单独参观的，所以才能感受到这些空间所提供的“意外的私密与孤独时刻”。
　　相反，开幕式上的观众会注意到，热量被看台上方的屋顶遮挡而无法散发，使“鸟巢”里面比外面明显热得多。奥运官方网站称，当时有“微风”(其实当时场内的空气更像燕窝汤)，风力如此之微弱，以至于旗杆内安装了特制的吹风装置，以确保旗子能够飘扬。
　　不过，没有下大雨。但是，上周五晚上什么都不能够抑制中国人展示民族团结并投入欢庆的激情。一位熟悉中国的人士表示，这一场面也许是人们自15世纪明朝鼎盛时期以来从未见过的。
　　204个参加北京奥运的国家和地区(第205个，文莱，在最后一刻退出)的运动员沿着场内跑道，行进或信步闲逛(取决于各国的喜好)至指定地点。
　　所幸地球不算太大：没有人能够在这种条件下承受更为冗长的运动员入场式，其中包括必须不停跳跳蹦蹦近两小时的官方啦啦队。
　　每一个运动队都得到轮流演奏乐曲的迎接，结果，马里、圣马力诺、黑山和朝鲜的运动队在《苏格兰勇士》(Scotland the Brave)的伴奏下入场，阿曼队则在听上去像是探戈的乐曲声中入场。

　　The Bird's Nest played slightly less of a starring role, beautiful though it is. The 91,000 spectators inside may or may not have noticed the “hierarchy of intimate spaces” allowing for “unexpected moments of privacy and solitude”, which enraptured the architectural critic of the New York Times on his presumably private visit.
　　They will have noticed the heat rising up to the roof over the stands, making the evening considerably hotter inside the stadium than it was outside. The official Olympic website said there was “a soft breeze” – so soft that a special wind machine was installed in the flagpoles to ensure the flags fluttered. The air was more like bird's nest soup.
　　There was no downpour, though. And last night nothing could have dampened Chinese ardour on a night of national unity and celebration, which one old China hand thought might not have been seen in Beijing since the 15th-century heyday of the Ming dynasty.
　　The 204 competing nations and quasi-nations – number 205, Brunei was a last-minute withdrawal – marched or sauntered (according to national taste) round what will become the running track to their appointed places.
　　It's lucky this is not an especially large planet: no one could endure an evening much longer than this in such conditions, least of all the official cheerleaders who were obliged to jig non-stop for nearly two hours.
　　Each team was greeted by music played in rotation so that Mali, San Marino, Montenegro and North Korea were piped in to the tune of Scotland the Brave; Oman had what sounded like the tango.

　　在中国大陆的小对手台湾(在奥运会场合称为中华台北)运动队入场，以及听上去像是一个邮寄地址的中国香港队入场时，观众席上爆发出热烈欢呼。
　　有时候，观众对政治的关注，超出了他们自己所在的地域。观众对伊拉克队报以特别响亮的掌声，这被解读为一种反美姿态。俄罗斯队也受到热烈欢迎，这比较奇怪。而阵容庞大、几乎望不到头的美国队，则仅得到散乱的掌声。
　　几乎没有人注意到，有个别运动员是在付出了超人的忍耐与痛苦之后，才有幸参加北京奥运的。比如担任南非队旗手的左腿截肢的游泳运动员娜塔莉·杜-图伊托(Natalie du Toit)；从苏丹难民成为中长跑运动员的洛佩兹·拉蒙(Lopez Lomong)，通过一项具有高度政治色彩的安排，他担任美国队旗手；或者柬埔寨马拉松选手布廷(Hem Bunting)，他在简陋的国家体育场训练，住在体育场附属的遍布苍蝇的宿舍。
　　苏丹队本身也值得一提，其举重运动员用充填了混凝土的油漆罐训练；肯尼亚有数名运动员在不久前席卷该国的暴力中遭受了巨大痛苦；还有来自黑暗的津巴布韦的运动员。在另一方面，瑞士队的旗手则是亿万富翁罗杰·费德勒(Roger Federer)。他们都有幸汇聚在奥运会上：富人、穷人、矮个子、高个子。
　　但这些运动员明白，他们并非开幕式上的明星，因为当中国队最后入场时，“鸟巢”内爆发出最热烈的欢呼声。中国队的旗子举得比其他运动队都要高，当然，那是因为中国队的旗手是身高7英尺6英寸的篮球运动员姚明。
　　上周五的夜晚属于中国，那时，中国人的感受确实像一个人民共和国。很可能，今后两周都属于他们。

　　There were big cheers for China's little rival, Taiwan (diplomatically called Chinese Taipei in this event) and for the team billed as Hong Kong, China, which sounds like a postal address.
　　Sometimes the crowd took notice of politics beyond their own corner of the globe. Iraq got a special roar, which was interpreted as an anti-American gesture. So did Russia, which was more surprising. The welcome for the US team, which stretched out almost to infinity, was patchy.
　　Hardly anyone noticed the individual athletes whose presence was often the result of extraordinary endurance and suffering, like the one-legged swimmer Natalie du Toit who carried South Africa's flag; or the Sudanese refugee-cum-middle distance runner Lopez Lomong, who, in a highly political gesture, was given the job for the US; or the Cambodian marathon runner Hem Bunting, who lives in a fly-blown dormitory at the ramshackle national stadium where he trains.
　　There was the Sudanese team itself, which does its weight-training using paint pots filled with concrete; the Kenyans, several of whom suffered grievously in the recent violence, and the benighted Zimbabweans. Switzerland's flagbearer, on the other hand, was the squillionaire Roger Federer. They were all blessed to be there: the rich, the poor, the long, the short and the tall.
　　But the athletes knew they were not the stars of the show, because then the stadium erupted for the Chinese. Their flag was carried higher than anyone else's, but then it was carried by the 7ft 6in basketball player Yao Ming.
　　It was China's night, an occasion when a people's republic felt, for once, like just that. It will probably be their fortnight.