AS LIU XIANG thundered over the 110 metres hurdles in the Olympic Stadium on Friday night to win China’s first men’s track medal, the organisers of Beijing 2008 found their face of the Games. The 21-year-old, who equalled Colin Jackson’s world record of 12.91sec set in 1993, was manna from heaven for Chinese sports administrators craving success in the high-profile athletics events.

At a reception near the ancient Panathinaikos stadium the night after, he was toasted as a superstar by a gaggle of Beijing organising committee (BOCOG) members, Beijing’s mayor and a host of corporate sponsors. Unveiling the official logo for the next summer Olympiad, Liu shouted “Welcome Beijing!” in English to rapturous applause. Last night, at the closing ceremony, 75,000 people joined him in celebrating the passing of the Olympic flag from Athens to Beijing despite a call by Tibetan freedom activists to mark the moment with a disapproving silence.

The International Tibet Support Network, a collection of 11 campaign groups, were earlier stopped by police from staging a peaceful protest to highlight China’s record of human rights abuses. “The people of China certainly deserve the Olympic Games. Regrettably, the Chinese Government does not,” Harry Wu, executive director of the Laogai Research Foundation, said.

When the IOC awarded the Games to Beijing by a single vote, world opinion was divided about whether China was a suitable host for the most prestigious event in sport. While the debate rages on, China is determined to stage the most spectacular Games yet. This ambition is supported by a colossal state investment of $34 billion (£19 billion), of which $22 billion is for facilities and $5.5 b illion on environmental protection as Beijing bids to be a “Green Games”.

Unlike Athens, Beijing will not face questions about construction schedules. The IOC urged it to slow down to avoid cashflow problems, so the Chinese Government reduced its target to be ready in advance from two years to one. China’s biggest challenge will be the arrival of more than 20,000 foreign journalists used to writing what they see, not what they are told. The Western media’s experience at Saturday’s logo-unveiling reception indicated that Beijing is courting a PR disaster. After a glorified tourist plug lasting two hours, BOCOG officials dodged the promised news conference.

While the hard questions are often avoided, in some instances they are not even asked. The global business community is salivating at the prospect of marketing to China’s 1.36 billion consumers, even if most will be unable to attend the Games for financial or political reasons. “The 2008 Games will captivate the world,” Tom Shepard, vice-president of Visa International, an Olympic partner, said.

There is no doubt that China’s record haul of 62 medals, 31 of them gold, has set off a buzz about Beijing. Although still second in the medals table behind the United States, China has improved on Sydney — where it finished third — by three golds. Sixty-eight of its 407 athletes finished in fourth to eighth place and it set 13 Olympic records. Besides Liu, unexpected highlights were golds for Xing Huina in the 10,000 metres, the women’s volleyball team, the men’s C2 500 metres flat kayaking and Luo Xuejuan in the 100 metres breaststroke. The first gold medal of the Games was won by Du Li in the women’s ten metres air rifle.

Since Sydney, China has put money and human resources into the sports at which it has traditionally been weak. This year, the state’s annual sports budget was about $100 million, of which a quarter went into elite sport. China’s Olympic Committee also planned for the future by overlooking older competitors for Athens to give younger talent a dry run for Beijing. It paid off: seven gold medal- winners were aged under 20.

They are not satisfied with dominating their best events — badminton, judo, diving, table tennis and women’s weightlifting. Which is why the golds won by Liu and Xing were crucial. “Athletics is very important and in many disciplines we are still far behind,” Yuan Weimin, chairman of the Chinese sports delegation, said. “These two gold medals demonstrated that Chinese people can also top these disciplines. This is just the beginning.”

China’s rapid progress has raised the inevitable question of doping. In the early 1990s, their middle-distance runners broke world records in dubious circumstances and, more recently, the China swimming team was caught at Perth airport before the World Championships with suitcases full of illegal substances. The Chinese Government reacted to international criticism, introducing an anti-doping law. Last year, its anti-doping agency conducted between 6,000 and 8,000 tests, while the China team has submitted 148 urine samples to IOC testers in Athens with no positive results.

“From a governmental point of view, they have done everything possible,” David Howman, director-general of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said. “All the signs are that they have turned the corner.”

If true, the dominant force in world sport is no longer America. The feeling is that China will top the medals table in 2008. “It’s the emergence of a sporting super state. It is frightening what is going on there,” Simon Clegg, Great Britain’s chef de mission, said. In Seoul in 1988, both China and Britain won five gold medals. Sixteen years later, Britain’s tally has edged up to nine while China’s has rocketed to 31. Clegg said: “We ain’t seen nothing yet.”