As Olympics 2022 set to open, avoiding a disaster might be considered success

BEIJING — China had something to prove when it hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Communist Party leaders framed the sporting event as a coming-out party, a chance to proclaim their arrival as a global superpower. A state-run news agency called it "a historical event in the great renaissance of the Chinese nation."

"Winning the host right," the news read, "means winning the respect, trust and favor of the international community."

Fourteen years later, as the Games return to Beijing in their winter format, the stakes have changed. It might be enough just to avoid calamity.

"Obviously mega-events