Where there’s a will, there’s a way. By surpassing the United States in the final gold medals count at the Beijing Olympics, hosts China, a world powerhouse in sports, did all and sundry in Asia tremendously proud.

For China, to accomplish the Herculean task of finishing at the top of the ladder is like a dream coming true and it happened mainly due to sheer hard work of their athletes for decades.

China became the first nation to cross the 50 gold medals barrier eclipsing the United States by breaking their stranglehold. The Chinese final medals tally comes to 51-21-28 while the US ended up with 36-38-36 in the final count.

China’s major success came in gymnastics (nine golds), weightlifting (eight golds), diving (seven golds), shooting (five golds), table tennis (four golds), badminton (three golds), judo (three golds) and boxing (two golds).

It was inevitable, particularly after the Chinese surged to second place behind the US on the final medals table at Athens four years ago. Then the Chinese went home with a haul of 32-17-14. The US, on the other hand, returned with the honours securing 35-39-29 medals.

History shows that China’s ascendancy in global sports has been the result of hardwork and focused progress. Their gradual success started in 1996, during the Atlanta Olympics, where China finished fourth with 16 golds, 22 silver and 12 bronze medals. Then, it was placed behind the US, Russia and Germany.

Four years later it was Sydney where China with 28 golds, 16 silver and 15 bronze was placed third, behind the US and Russia.

Of course, there were some noteworthy performances which have gone into the annals of the quadrennial Olympics, apart from the spectacular opening and closing ceremonies, which left an indelible mark. Winning an Olympic medal be it a gold, silver or bronze has no parallel and those who succeeded in getting at least one of them were heroes with smile on their faces but some even grew in stature with performances par excellence.

Swimmer Michael Phelps of the US rose to new heights with his superhuman feat of eight golds, never seen before in the history of modern Olympics. He seized gold in 400m Individual Medley, 200m Freestyle, 200m Butterfly, 200m Individual Medley, 100m Butterfly, 4x100m Freestyle relay, 4x200m Freestyle relay and 4x100m Medley relay.

Though the US dominated the track and field events, it was the Jamaican sprinters Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser who opened a new leaf by capturing the ‘Fastest Man’ and ‘Fastest Woman’ titles respectively including doubles apiece (100m and 200m). Bolts third gold came in 4x100m relay where he featured in third leg. He set new marks in all the three events with his name etched in the Olympic history.

They helped Jamaica finished overall 13th with 6-3-2 medals — 3-0-0 in men’s and 3-3-2 in women’s.

As far as track and field is concerned, the US in all, amassed 23 medals 7-9-7 in the men’s and women’s categories where 47 gold medals were at stake.

Ethiopia and Kenya are synonymous with middle and long distance races. Despite poverty, their athletes are born to rule the world. Kenenisa Bekele and Tirunesh Dibaba did Ethiopia proud by winning double apiece -5,000m and 10,000m in men’s and women’s respectively.

India also figured on the medals table, thanks to marksman Abhinav Bindra who created history by winning first-ever individual gold for India. He was accorded heroes welcome on return. India also annexed two bronze, one in wrestling and the other in boxing.

Rohullah Nikpai also caught the eye when he won first ever medal, a bronze, for war trodden Afghanistan in 58kg tae kwondo.

Pakistan, despite a rich Olympic history, disappointed the 160 million people back home by returning empty-handed for the fourth time in succession and falling to an all-time low in the Games — eighth in the 12-nation hockey contest. The last time Pakistan won a medal was a bronze at Barcelona in 1992.

Hockey, which has survived a century in Olympics, commands a special place in the nation’s sports heritage. Though the truth is hard to swallow yet the fact is that the green shirts lacked scientific approach to their game. Domination is not exactly reflected by the number of penalty corners that a team forces on the opponent but what matters is rate of conversion and that is the area in which Pakistan is less than adequate.

Furthermore the coaches and experts need to pay attention in improving the level of fitness and speed of our players. The so-called camps of short duration and penalty corner drills are fine up to a point, but what counts is the net result.

The other athletes, all wild-card entries, were among the also ran. Athletes Sadaf Siddiqui and Abdul Rasheed, shooter Siddiq Umer and swimmers Adil Baig and Kiran Khan sank without a whimper.

In keeping with the practice in the past, a large number of officials who had made tall claims even accompanied the 21 athletes to Beijing on government expenses. They have started resigning from their posts and are offering apologies to the nation. But what good will that be since the damage has been done.

It is time that a beginning is made and those responsible for the debacle be reprimanded and banned from sports for ever.