It's all showbusiness at the Beijing Olympics (Feature)

Beijing - The opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympics was so majestic and perfect that many thought it was too good to be true. And it was indeed too good to be true. Little by little, over the past few days, some of the tricks used to impress the planet have been revealed. The most recent - but possibly not the last - controversy broke out after a Chinese agency revealed that Lin Miaoke, the girl who in theory sang the Hymn to the Motherland during the ceremony, barely mimed. The voice that charmed the world belonged to a different girl, Yang Peiyi. There was no immediate explanation for the absence of Yang, a 7-year-old who is a chubbier girl with a nice, cheerful face. But Lin, beyond her perfect beauty, is a lot more used to the cameras: at 9, she regularly works as a model in television adverts in her country. The news that Lin was not really singing during the ceremony did not quite surprise everyone. The dubbing was not perfect, and during the show several people commented that the girl's lip movements were not totally synchronous with the song. But everyone thought it was straightforward playback, not that another girl had done the singing. The issue generated extra controversy because the official programme gave no credit whatsoever to the girl that actually contributed her voice to the ceremony: Yang Peiyi's name is nowhere to be seen on the script. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) played down the importance of the incident Wednesday. 'It is a casting or it is a technical decision by the producer,' said IOC boss Gilbert Felli. The series of revelations about manipulations at the opening ceremony started a few days ago, when it became known that only one of the 29 fireworks footsteps seen on television during the show had actually been done on the opening day of the Games. The other 28 were made and filmed around Beijing on previous days, when the sky was clearer than on that August 8 in which former gymnast Li Ning made his unforgettable 'flight' around the inner upper ring at the National Stadium to light the Olympic flame. There is also suspicion that organizers are using volunteers to fill empty spaces on the stands during competitive events. The rumour is based on the presence of a great number of Chinese 'fans' with yellow shirts in tournaments that do not attract too much of a crowd. Using volunteers would seek to prevent the bad impression that empty stands would make on television around the world. Although Chinese authorities have said that all tickets available for the Games have been sold, half-full and even almost empty stadiums are not rare. Such was the case Wednesday, when the female volleyball teams representing Venezuela and the United States played before less than 3,500 people. Beach volleyball matches - which have been very popular since they were introduced in Atlanta 1996 - are often being played with few spectators. Qu Chen, a volunteer on the sand at Chaoyang Park, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa that all tickets had been sold. 'Tickets give the buyer the right to watch all the games played throughout a day, but many spectators prefer to leave after watching the morning games,' Qu said of the beach volleyball tournament. That may well be true. But if it is not, one can always agree with the IOC's argument that it's all part of the show.