I’ve watched six summer Olympic games, and in Beijing I’ve seen the two most amazing performaces: Michael Phelps’ eight swimming golds, and Usain Bolt’s 100- and 200-meter titles, both in the most impressive world records I’ve seen in any event.

Leave it to the IOC to completely ruin the moment.

Despite so many distractions from the host city Beijing, the IOC president Jacques Rogge showed stunning arrogance in choosing one issue to criticize: Bolt’s manerrisms during the 100- and 200-finals, what he called “showboating”.

Oh boy.

“He is a young man but he should show more respect for his rivals,” Rogge said. “That would be more in the spirit of the Olympic ideal. That’s not the way we perceive being a champion”.

Good grief. Where do we start?

For Rogge to make such an amazing sweeping statement asks us to ignore his own organization’s record in awarding the games to Beijing. For him to mention the swagger of an athlete asks us to turn a blind eye to his organization’s money grab in giving the games to a country so unfit for “the Olympic ideal” (see our week-one wrap up). And by making one more attempt to get us to the ignore the hear-no-evil, see-no-evil nature of these games with a distraction, Mr. Rogge paints himself as three things.

Blind, deaf and dumb.

Let’s recap for Mr. Rogge. So far in Beijing, China has:

• Not even looked at applications for protests, despite promising the IOC and the world it would allow them.
• Faked many aspects of the opening ceremony, including a 9-year-old lip syncing cutie.
• Continued its ban on HIV-positive or AIDS-carrying visitors.
• Used gymnasts that clearly are under the legal age.
• Assaulted and arrested a BBC reporter during a protest.
• Initially blocked media members from using a number of websites, despite promises otherwise.
• seen smog threaten events and the whole games.
• Restricted access to Tiananmen Square.
• Been beaten down in a rights report, where Amnesty International announced China’s human-rights records worsened from 2001, when it got the games and promised to improve.
• Seen the continued crackdown on Tibet.

And out of all these issues, Rogue fixated on Bolt. What a world.

Thing is, none of us would have a problem with the IOC had it come clean about why Beijing got these games: Dollars.

Few cities have the infrastructure and financial ability to put on the games like this one, and despite its shortcomings in democracy and human rights, the Chinese know how to get things done - just look at the facilities built since getting the games seven years ago. The problems the IOC had in awarding the games to Greece (budget, timeline) and Atlanta (size, infrastructure, disorganization) were never felt here. Beijing may have been as ready for the games as any city since Los Angeles in 1984, and the stadiums built are as good as any games we’ll see in a lifetime.

Yet we keep having the ridiculous notion of “the spirit of the games” shoved down our throats, all in an atmosphere where, it’s clear, there lives no spirit.

The Olympic ideal died years ago. Nearly every sport has professional athletes, and most give bonuses to men and women that medal. Pros play tennis. Pros swim. Pros play hoops. Pros run track and field. Pros play volleyball. The ideal was when this was a game for amateurs. That was decades ago. Those games are no more.

Of course, no one told Mr. Rogge.

When Beijing got the games, it promised improved human rights, free access to journalists, allowance of protesters, a cornucopia of freedoms. The games would be wonderful, the games would be beautiful, the IOC and China boasted. Everyone doubted it, and from day one, few of the Chinese promises have come to fruition.

But you’d never know it listening to either organization. The IOC has been hiding behind a wall of excuses. “The Chinese have made progress”. “The Chinese are putting on a splendid games”. “Look at where they are compared to the past”.

If only the brilliant Chinese could have stopped Mr. Bolt’s braggadocio, eh Jacques? Perhaps they should jail him like a protester.

Let’s call these games what they should be: World championships held every four years. They’re nothing more than a competition of the globe’s best athletes on a bigger scale than yearly titles. Worldwide exposure brings a bigger audience, a bigger payday, a bigger rating, and a money grab. A gold medal doesn’t lose its value by admitting this.

Then the Olympics can be like every other big event - out to find the best host that will give them the best financial deal, regardless of political history. The World Cup doesn’t have this problem - it goes to whatever country is fit to hold its event. American leagues do the same thing. Heck, the NFL, NBA and college sports don’t blink an eye to the carousing of New Orleans; it’s a good deal for them. The NBA even put an All-Star game in Las Vegas. Why?

Because its a professionals game, and the leagues go where the best deal is. And the Olympics are an event for professionals, not ones operating under the archaic “spirit of the games” excuse that ignores everything that’s happening around us. If this is done, Beijing wouldn’t have to make excuses for its behavior every five seconds.

Of course, that solution would be too easy for the IOC, which makes the NCAA look like a well-oiled machine.

Usain Bolt’s records will stand for a number of years, though eventually they will be broken. Still, his performance will be one of the lasting images of these games, regardless of his braggart moves towards the end of his titles. Sadly, Mr. Rogge’s bumbling and bungling PR will be remembered just as much, if only for the IOC’s inability to admit why Beijing has these Olympics.

Money.