I was standing in the Reuters newsroom where I worked in the then German capital of Bonn, when my former colleague Martin Nesirky filed an urgent story from East Berlin. The old printer it emerged from went into alarm mode.

The story that flashed around the world in seconds had a simple message - East German citizens could now leave the country without a visa.

But what it really meant was that the Berlin Wall had just crashed down before our eyes. It took a few hours before everybody - East German citizens and the guards on the wall particularly - understood what was happening.

For the next weeks and months, I was in the middle of the most exciting story of my life. And, it is often forgotten, that it was a big sporting story too.

I went into East Germany and hunted down the doctors who had been running the GDR's former drug-taking regime. Amazingly, they were very honest about the systematic cheating. In the late autumn of 1989, there was a real sense that East Germans needed to unload the emotional baggage they had been carrying around for decades.

Within hours of the Wall coming down, there was talk of a Berlin Olympic bid and a joint East-West Olympic team. At the time, both ideas seemed years away. But reunification happened within a year and we saw the emergence of a united German team at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics. The Berlin bid was less successful, largely because the Cold War was over when it went to the International Olympic Committee.

I then reported on a fascinating five years of German sport when the football team won the World Cup in Italy and Germany was a force in a variety of Olympic sports, the mix of east and west German systems.

The country's powerful economy also meant many major championships came to Germany because there were plenty of big-name sponsors ready to back them.

The reason I am writing about this is that I feel Britain could be heading into equally exciting sporting days in the three years to the 2012 Olympics and beyond.

We've just had a great world gymnastics championships in London and the ATP World Tour tennis finals are heading to the 02 Arena this month. This will put the global spotlight on London and on the 02 as one of the key 2012 venues.

The Olympics will mean many more global championships will be taking place in London and Britain in the next few years. There's the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014 and almost certainly, a world athletics championships at the Olympic Park in the five years after 2012.

You could add the possibility of a football World Cup in 2018 but my sources tell me there's going to be a lot of work to do to stop the Spanish and the Russians snatching that tournament away from us.

But even if the World Cup bid fails next year, London and Britain must enjoy this next decade and use these events to inspire kids to take up sport.

And we have to make sure people away from London - in Birmingham, Manchester and Scotland - get a piece of all of the action when the capital has its big days. That means cheap rail tickets, Park and Ride, and travel-ticket deals have to be a big part of the next 10 years.

As a member of our Olympics reporting team and an ice hockey commentator, I'll be in Vancouver (and Whistler) alongside Rob Hodgetts and Anna Thompson, covering the Games for the BBC Sport website.

But the Games won't just emerge out of nothing. The world's top winter sports athletes are already getting stuck into the winter season - there is action all over the place as they cram in training sessions and try to get the kind of results, and confidence, that will see them on to medals in Canada.

Here's a round-up of what's been going on, including links to the best stuff on the BBC and elsewhere, and a look ahead to the coverage we've got coming up.

Solden, in Austria, is almost always the first place to look when the winter sports season gets going. It's the traditional venue for the start of the skiing World Cup circuit.

This year, Solden's men's giant slalom competition was won by Swiss skier Didier Cuche for the men, ahead of American star Ted Ligety, both of whom usually feature near the top of the standings.

Cuche won the 2007 world championship bronze medal in giant slalom, and holds the world title in super-G, another alpine skiing discipline (all of which are explained in our guides). Ligety has the 2009 world bronze to his name, and won Olympic gold in the combined event in Torino in 2006.

In the women's event, Finland's Tanja Poutiainen nipped in ahead of Austrian local favourite Kathrin Zettel to win by a margin of one hundredth of a second. Poutiainen won silver in the giant slalom at the last Olympics, but has never won a world or Olympic title, so it's a great start to her campaign.

However, another Austrian star, Nicole Hosp, tore her knee ligaments and is going to miss the rest of the season. She won the giant slalom world title in 2007, and would have been a medal contender at Vancouver.

The news from Solden wasn't great for Britain's Chemmy Alcott, either. Alcott is GB's only real hope in women's skiing right now, and last month she told Anna she has "the self-belief to win gold", but she also needs results - and finished down in 19th in Solden. Here's Swissinfo's report on proceedings, and the results are here.

The next event is slalom in the Finnish resort of Levi on 14 and 15 November. Check the skiing governing body's full calendar of World Cup events for more. And once you've done that, take a look at Ghana's "snow leopard" Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong, who spoke to us last week.

Britain's snowboarders have been in action too. Ben Kilner, a 21-year-old from Banchory in Aberdeenshire, is hoping to reach Vancouver to compete in the half-pipe event, and finished 14th in the sport's second World Cup event of the season in Switzerland.

He didn't reach the final but, in his own words, "the result keeps me on track for Vancouver so I'm really pleased with that". Next up is the third round on 6 and 7 January 2010 in Kreischberg, Austria. There's more on the SnowsportsGB website, and Kilner was in London not so long ago, showing off at Battersea power station. We spent a bit of time speaking to him here.

Britain's Ben Kilner - a snowboarding powerhouse in the making?

The hundred-day countdown mark gave the British Olympic Association a cue to voice fears that London 2012 fever might overshadow British achievements in Vancouver.

BOA boss Andy Hunt said: "There's no way that I want winter athletes to ever feel like second-class citizens. They are absolutely fundamental to the Olympic movement, both in Britain and around the world."

Britain's winter sports competitors get roughly 1.5% of the funding available to the summer sports - and usually have to train abroad for their troubles, too. (There being no skeleton run or ski jump in the UK, among other facilities.)

We've heard tales of British winter sports athletes flogging goods from their car boots to make ends meet and pay training costs, and certainly there are others who fund themselves in the absence of official backing.

So novel ways of raising cash are nothing new, but the US speedskating team still raised eyebrows when they got US late-night TV comic Stephen Colbert involved.

Colbert's show is now sponsoring the team - or at least, the show's fans are. The show itself is paying nothing, but will encourage its viewers to donate. The US team say they don't know if they'll get $5 or $500,000.

Is it time for a GB response? Should the next series of X Factor - or perhaps more appropriately, Dancing On Ice - focus on finding winter sports talent, with the phone voting profits going to the athletes? I'm thinking Hole In The Wall On Ice would be appointment-to-view television in our living room.

Britain's skeleton team are one of our best bets for a medal in Vancouver. Shelley Rudman brought home silver in 2006, GB's only medal of the Games, and is heading back into action alongside partner and fellow skeleton star Kristan Bromley this year.

Their first two World Cup events are on 12 and 20 November at the US venues of Park City and Lake Placid respectively. Before they left the country, the BBC went filming with the pair.

Nationality issues are causing consternation in both the British and French camps ahead of the Winter Olympics.

Ice dancers Mark Hanretty and Christine Chitwood have given up on their bid to get into the British team for Vancouver - because as far as organisers are concerned, Christine is still American.

Though she married an Englishman in August, her visa has yet to drop through the letterbox, and it'll be two more years before she can claim UK citizenship. All of which leaves Sochi 2014 as their target.

Remember French athlete Eunice Barber? Initially from Sierra Leone but a French competitor since 1999, Barber (right) is a former world champion in the heptathlon and long jump.

Her next trick was going to be a bid for women's bobsleigh gold in Vancouver, having re-trained to represent France in the event. But it takes two to tango long jump bobsleigh, and Canadian-born Lesa Mayes-Stringer, the only woman capable of driving the French team's sled alongside Barber, has been denied French nationality for a second time.

"There is not much hope left," according to Charles Dumont, technical director of the French winter sports federation, quoted in the Vancouver Sun. "But we will try to mobilize support in political circles."

Finally, keep an ear out for BBC Radio 5 live's next Winter Olympics special, coming up on Thursday, 12 November from 2000 GMT, with Eleanor Oldroyd presenting. I'll pop details of who's appearing on the end of this blog as soon as I know, and the whole thing will be on iPlayer too.

Questions about the Winter Olympics? Want to know more about one of the sports, one of the athletes, or BBC coverage? Leave a comment below and I'll get onto it for you, or you can ask me on Twitter.

Yep, things are moving in Canada. It's now fewer than 100 days to the start of the Winter Olympics in Vancouver and the journey of the Olympic torch has begun.

I should say I love Canada. How can you not be won over by a country with places called Moose Jaw and Medicine Hat?

I've had a number of holidays over there and I'm particularly fond of British Columbia, the province that will be hosting the games in Vancouver and up in the mountains at Whistler.

So I've been keeping an eye on the start of the torch relay both for personal interest and also to monitor how the event is being staged given that London 2012 gets ever closer.

The 106-day cross country relay will end in Vancouver on February 12

The Vancouver flame was lit in the traditional way at Olympia and then travelled around Greece before being handed over in Athens.

It flew to Canada encased in a miner's lantern on board a military plane, and we're told it had a row of seats to itself.

There was a total of 4 flames and 6 lanterns - presumably in case of any unfortunate incidents of extinguishment.

But it landed successfully in the BC capital of Victoria, a place on the edge of the Pacific Ocean which feels like a British town thanks to a grand hotel serving afternoon tea, some well-tended gardens and the statue of Queen Victoria outside the Parliament buildings.

And then the torch began its journey round Canada in what will be the longest domestic relay in Olympic history, ahead of the Games themselves next February.

If you've got time, have a look at the daily highlights log on the Vancouver 2010 website. There's also loads of coverage in the Canadian press.

What leaps out is the pride of a country about to stage the Olympic Games, and also the sheer pleasure of the people selected to carry the flame.

Alongside that is the potential to "play" with the torch: to take it to unusual locations, to devise novel forms of transport and to maintain interest despite what's something of an endurance test.

Ruth Sadler, a 72-year-old who still rides waves off Vancouver Island, hands the flame to surfer Raph Bruhwiler

I know the London organisers are watching the Vancouver experience and are about to start their planning in detail. We too will have a torch handed to us in a stadium in Greece - in the Spring of 2012.

It will be transferred to the UK, by means currently unknown, for its journey around our nations and regions before it lights the Olympic cauldron on July 27th.

I was talking to a colleague about the Canadian experience so far, and he said he thought ours would be significantly different: "we're more cynical and we prefer things understated in a British way."

I'm not sure about cynical, but I am sure about Britishness: it would be bizarre if the UK didn't make this torch journey its own. And that's the opportunity: to take a global symbol in a year the eyes of the world are upon us and to make it part of our national story - just as they're doing in Canada now.

As part of the 100 Days to the Winter Games… Read

And then I remember they sometimes have to make tough decisions - 50/50 calls that will leave lots of people annoyed no matter which way you call it - and wonder if I really would like that responsibility.

World cycling's bosses are facing one of those lunch-spoiling dilemmas right now and the decision they appear to have made has certainly annoyed a lot of people, many of them British.

But before anybody accuses them of plotting to do us in now that we're good at something we should perhaps try to understand why preventing British cyclists from defending hard-won Olympic titles is not the open-and-shut case of incompetence/insensitivity/anti-British prejudice it might seem at first glance.

Underlying all this - the proposed changes to the London 2012 track cycling programme, the scrapping of traditional events, the introduction of new ones, the complaints and predictions of doom - is a glaring injustice that simply must be addressed: men have more chances to win Olympic medals than women do.

Bradley Wiggins' storming ride in Beijing might be the last ever Olympic men's individual pursuit

In Beijing there were 165 men's events and only 127 for women. This meant that 58% of the 11,000 athletes at the Games were male - the inequality is even worse at the Winter Olympics.

This is more than just a bit embarrassing for a movement that considers itself liberal and meritocratic, it also falls short of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) own charter and could even be illegal in many countries (particularly when you consider the public money involved in staging these celebrations of humanity).

Simple, you might be thinking, just introduce more events for the women, 165 gold-medal opportunities each.

If only it was that easy.

Leaving aside any debate on the attraction of women's Greco-Roman wrestling or men's synchronised swimming, there is one massive problem with adding events to the Olympic programme: cost. More events, means more athletes, more coaches, more officials, more rooms, more vehicles, more, more, more.

The price tag of an Olympics is already at the upper end of what most governments think they can reasonably expect their electorates to go for and the IOC knows it. Asking for more is out of the question. So if the federations that run the Olympic sports want new events they're going to have to give up some old ones.

Which brings us to track cycling: Beijing's Laoshan Velodrome was a fantastic venue for top sport, and the scene of many of Team GB's proudest moments, but it was hardly an equal-opportunities workplace.

Of the 10 events, only three were for female cyclists. While this meant Sir Chris Hoy was able to sprint to three golds and a knighthood, Victoria Pendleton had to make do with one and some magazine work.

This disgraceful situation left cycling's governing body, the UCI, open to considerable criticism. And it certainly came, much of it from Britain. But say what you like about the UCI, and many do, nobody can say it didn't listen.

At London 2012, it has decreed, there will be five events for men and five for women: sprint, team sprint, keirin, team pursuit and omnium. So out go the men's madison and points races, the women's points and both individual pursuits, and in comes a women's team sprint, keirin, team pursuit and two omniums.

Those changes are provisional but nobody is expecting the IOC to do anything other than rubber-stamp them at its next board meeting in December.

So, with one bureaucratic flourish, equality between the sexes has been delivered in the velodrome. But what about equality between the cyclists?

The five chosen events can be broken down into three for sprinters like Hoy and Pendleton, one for distance riders like Bradley Wiggins and Rebecca Romero, and one, the five-discipline omnium, for all-rounders. These choices represent a clear shift away from endurance events to more explosive ones, and reaction has divided along those lines (as the video below demonstrates).

Pendleton, unsurprisingly, is delighted. Sprint king Hoy is pleased for his female counterparts but acknowledges it is hard on the distance riders. Romero and Wiggins, individual pursuit specialists, are furious. The former described the changes as "ludicrous", while the latter said the proposals would "kill off" endurance cycling on the track.

Wiggins, a three-time world and double Olympic champion, was hoping to go for an unprecedented third straight victory in his home city in 2012, and Romero will also now be deprived of the chance to defend her Olympic title. If that's not bad enough, Wiggo has also lost his ride in the madison and Romero her second medal shot in the points race.

And it's not just these two in the GB team left wondering if they have upset the cycling gods. Beijing medallists like Steven Burke, Wendy Houvenaghel and Geraint Thomas can all feel aggrieved about the UCI's "radical" tinkering.

But the link between the individual pursuit and Britain goes deeper than that. Domestic riders have won 21 world titles in the event in the last half century. The greats of British track cycling - Beryl Burton, Graeme Obree, Hugh Porter et al - have specialised in this most pure of contests.

And you could argue that Chris Boardman's individual pursuit triumph in 1992 was the catalyst for Britain's recent Olympic renaissance. The lessons learned by Boardman and his young coach Peter Keen have transformed Team GB from being nice-but-nowhere types to success-hungry medal machines.

So it is more than just another event for British cyclists and while none of them disputes the need to address the male/female medal split, they are wondering if other sports would have been given such a firm one-in/one-out ultimatum.

Athletics, the Olympics' biggest sport, has been allowed to level up its medal split without losing men's events, and swimming, the second biggest sport, has also not had to engage in much horse-trading with the IOC over the years. Are some Olympic sports more equal than others? That, no doubt, will be the topic of much conversation when the track cycling community gathers in Manchester this weekend for the World Cup Series' opening leg.

I expect there will be also be some water-cooler chat about the omnium, which isn't on the World Cup menu but has appeared at the last few world championships. Until now cycling's answer to the pentathlon has failed to tempt the sport's biggest names (Thomas refers to it as a "joke event" in the video above) but that will probably change now there is an Olympic medal to aim for. One rider who appears made for its jack-of-all-trades demands is Britain's Lizzie Armitstead. Remember the name.

It is also worth pointing out that British cycling has been here before. Hoy was devastated when the UCI took away his speciality, the kilo, to accommodate BMX in Beijing. The Scot has admitted to almost quitting but he decided to set himself new goals and emerged four years later as the world's greatest sprinter in both the power events and the more tactical ones. When I spoke to Hoy about this at the Nationals last week, his message was clear: if you want a new challenge, you'll find it.

He's right, of course, His Royal Hoyness usually is. And who knows, perhaps this is the burning injustice that will motivate Romero to a third Olympic medal in different sports/events (rowing, track cycling and road cycling) and Wiggins to Tour de France glory. The UCI would struggle to scrap that.

As well as my blogs, you can follow me when I'm out and about at http://twitter.com/bbc_matt

ps And if you want to read an interview with the man who helped Hoy get over losing his favourite event, click here. It's a great read.

It's not his carbon fibre bike, or something he's eaten, or some new trick in training that has somehow produced even more power in those famous quads.

The weapon is a mild-mannered 56-year-old chap from the north-east of England who, by his own admission, knows "next to nothing" about professional cycling and has never once cycled round a velodrome.

Steve Peters is the British team's psychiatrist, the Oliver Sacks of cycling. He has variously been described as a "genius" (Dave Brailsford) and "the reason I am riding today" (Vicky Pendleton). "Without Steve I don't think I could have brought home the triple golds from Beijing," Hoy has said.

"I do get phone calls from cyclists in the middle of the night," laughs Peters. "But at the end of the day, that's what I'm here for. I can catch my sleep up some other time."

Peters is perhaps the most unlikely success story in British coaching. His background is in serious mental health - for 12 years he was based at Rampton high-security hospital, working with individuals suffering from severe personal disorders - and he never watches sport on television.

Since the record-breaking successes of the British cyclists in Beijing, however, he is a man in demand. Like his boss Brailsford, he has been tapped up by other countries and other sports, and like head coach Shane Sutton, he will be trackside for every minute of the action over the next three days.

"On the day of competition a lot of people start to lose it," explains Peters, perched high in the stands at the Manchester velodrome, cyclists hammering round the banked boards behind him like gaudy clockwork toys.

"Anxiety starts getting the better of them. They start saying things like, 'I really don't want these feelings, I really don't want these thoughts, and they're stopping me from competing at my best'.

"Chris is a very anxious man at times. In the keirin, his chimp can threaten to take over six or seven times."

Ah yes. The chimp. Peters has a way with animal-based metaphor - he once said all elite athletes could be categorised as Labradors, Rottweilers, Alsatians or poodles - but it's his depiction of the chimp as the irrational, emotional side of someone's personality that is the most striking.

"When I let my enormous chimp out," explained Hoy, "I started thinking like a pessimist. I had a tremendous sense of foreboding, wondering about the what ifs, about crashes and mistakes."

"Chris is an excellent pupil," says Peters. "There was a lot of motivation for him, a lot of engagement and a willingness to try, and then a lot of effort - so therefore a lot of success.

"Dave Brailsford was supervising me back in 2003, when I was just part-time. He's not that keen on psychiatry or psychology but he wanted me to show my worth, so he gave me Chris and said, 'Is there anything you can do here?'

"I wanted to give Chris the skills to ask why it was happening, why he was allowing it to happen and how he could get round that. So we worked on that for a long time. Before Athens, we rehearsed everything for hours. He probably did more hours of mental training than he did physical."

Athens was a tipping-point for both Hoy and Peters. The three riders in the kilo before Hoy all broke the world record. Rather than being overwhelmed by self-doubt and anxiety, Hoy used a step-by-step mental drill that the pair had been working on for months.

"It was only with about 10 metres to go until the finish line that he first looked up and thought, hey, I'm in an Olympic final," marvels Peters. "It was almost the perfect mental display.

"Once Dave saw what was going on, he said, 'Everyone has to meet you - this is powerful stuff!' but I didn't want that - I wanted them to approach me. After about three years pretty much everyone had knocked on the door and at least said, 'Can I just see what you're doing, see what you might do for me.'"

Peters speaks with a quiet self-confidence. While his career switch into sport was something he could never have envisaged ("It was an accident, really") he is absolutely certain in what he is doing.

"Some of the team don't need me. With other athletes it might be one per cent or nothing. But for the majority, being in control of their emotions can be the difference between success and failure."

Where Hoy overcame his chimp in Athens, Pendleton was unsaddled by hers. It is her subsequent successes that Peters seems most proud of.

"Vicky had the skills on the bike, the power and the ability, but what she couldn't do was control the fears and the anxieties, so when she came to competition she massively underperformed. She wanted to disengage, to actually get off the bike.

"What I wanted her to do was engage with her emotions, work on the mental skills so she could get back on the bike and fulfil her potential. If you wanted her to say what percentage difference her mental skills made, she's likely to say very high."

So what exactly does Peters do? Is there one simple piece of advice he could give to all amateur sportsmen to instantly improve their performance?

"There is no recipe," he says. "You're working with an individual mind that might take you anywhere. You, Tom, might tell me that the more people out there on a day of competition the better you feel, whereas someone else might say the direct opposite. It's a unique interpretation of your world and belief systems, and I have to work with that. It's very complex and it can take some time to unravel.

"I would get to know you really well, ask you what it is you want to do and why you can't get there. Everyone has unique beliefs or behaviours that are stopping them, so I would work on those things that are specific for you.

"Everyone comes in with different agenda. It might be, 'Can I communicate better with my coach,' 'Can I understand my discipline more easily,' 'Can I be a happier person,' 'Can I be more motivated'.

"I like to work half the time with the athlete and half the time with the coach. They're the experts. All I can do is oil the wheels, ask the coach what it is that he or she can't do."

Before each race this weekend, Peters will be trackside, ready to assist each rider in their own unique way.

"We use a structured five-stage mental warm-up, just as you would use a structured physical warm-up. They all want different things. Some want to chat to you while they're on the rollers, warming up; some just want you to say hello so they know you're around if they need you, others might give you a phone call.

"What I'm effectively doing is putting you in a zone where you want to be there, and you're ready to focus very quickly on your event."

Peters is in his ninth year with British cycling, his fifth full-time. As with many in the British set-up, from riders to coaches, he is aware of the need for fresh challenges after the outstanding results in Beijing.

Both Hoy and Pendleton could be forgiven for losing their hunger and motivation after achieving their career goals in the Laoshan Velodrome. Peters too could have stepped away, moved into a new and more lucrative area, but there are two big reasons why he intends to stay put for a while.

The first is Team Sky, the forthcoming British road-racing team that will make its Tour de France next summer. "Dave wants me to work in the same way, so that we have a psychological power base and can get optimum performances. I hope we can replicate our success on the track and win the Tour. It should happen."

The second is the people he has around him in Manchester. "I love this team. Dave is a personal friend, Shane Sutton (head coach) is a personal friend, Chris Boardman - we've all become friends. As long as we're all a team, and I don't get too old, I can't see myself moving on. I'm just a minion in the system, but it's a fantastic atmosphere working here."

PS For an interesting blog from my colleague Matt Slater on the proposed changes to the London 2012 track cycling programme, click here.

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The streets are quiet, with traffic restrictions introduced in the run-up to the Games remaining in place until the conclusion of the Paralympics on September 20. Construction sites remain eerily silent, with the migrant labourers that have helped to transform the Chinese capital also unable to return to the city until the end of next month. Factories within the city limits remain idle, or working at reduced capacity. Over the past few days, the air has been incredibly clear, the sky a deep blue and the Western Hills visible in high-definition from the city centre.

This situation is unlikely to remain permanent. After September 20, the pollution measures will be lifted, cars will stream back onto the city's broad highways, the migrant workers will return, building work will recommence, and the smog will almost certainly return.

But having had a taste of clean air and congestion-free streets, Beijingers are understandably reluctant to countenance a return to the bad old days.

Hundreds of thousands of message board posters and bloggers have been actively calling on the government to keep some of the pollution and traffic restrictions in place for good. 

An opinion poll conducted by state news agency Xinhua, found 56% of Beijing residents in favour of at least some of the restrictions remaining in place permanently. Xinhua, the state news agency, reported that an opinion survey of 10,000 people found 56 per cent in favour of retaining some restrictions. An op-ed piece in the city's most liberal daily newspaper (I use the term hesitantly, this is a one-party state after all) called for the special Olympic lanes - the third lane on many highways has been reserved for official traffic during the Games - to be converted into bus lanes after the Games to speed up journey times and encourage Beijingers to leave their cars at home. The fact that the tightly controlled state media is being given the freedom to debate these issues means that the issue is at the very least being considered at a governmental level.

Politicians are acutely aware of a rising sense of activism among the urban middle-classes over environmental issues in China, and of the dangers of not responding to these concerns. Over the past 18 months, there have been a number of large-scale public demonstrations against factories, landfills and other large-scale polluting industries - see my previous blog post on the issue. Whereas in the past, such public gatherings would have been quickly, and if necessary violently, dispersed by the police, all have largely been allowed to pass off peacefully, although organisers were reportedly questioned and harassed after the event.

Just last weekend, an estimated 500 residents of Changying, in the city's eastern suburbs, took to the streets to protest against the continued operation of a large waste disposal facility close to their homes. According to Hong Kong-based human rights groups, two protestors were injured in clashes with security officials, while another is reported missing. However, eyewitness reports suggested that the protest was peaceful and well-behaved.

In a couple of weeks, the Paralympics will be over, the Beijing 2008 bunting will come down and, in all likelihood, most if not all of the temporary pollution restrictions will be lifted. But the Games have undoubtedly emboldened Beijingers - both helping them to believe that they are now living in a truly a globally recognised and admired city, but also in giving them the confidence to stand up for their rights.

In the aftermath of every Olympic games, there is plenty of talk about legacy. From an overhauled infrastructure to the dozens of new venues and hundreds of shiny new hotels, shopping centres and apartment complexes that were rushed to completion in time for the Games, the Olympics has most definitely left its mark on Beijing.

The 1988 Games in Seoul ushered in a period of rapid political liberalisation and reform. I do not see this happening in China. But by empowering citizens at a local level to express their views and stand up for their interests, these Olympics have changed Beijing society. And if the end result is a realisation that the heavily polluting, heavy industry growth model that has fuelled China's economic transformation over the past 30 years is unsustainable, then these Games may have left the most important legacy imaginable, not just for China's 1.3 billion citizens, but for the world as a whole.

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From the moment an unkempt Boris Johnson, suit jacket unbuttoned and hands in pockets, waddled into the Bird's Nest, the mood of the Closing Ceremony - which, to that point had been impressive but ultimately rather cold - changed. Johnson, a huge grin on his face, stood on the podium waving sheepishly, clearly not quite sure what to do with his hands.

He grabbed the Olympic flag off IOC president Jacques Rogge, managed to get it tangled up, before waving it a few times - it was supposed to be six but I don't think Boris was counting - signalling the handover of the Games to London. Johnson departed, hands alternating between his pockets, and shaking hands with the rather bemused mayor of Beijing, Liu Qi.

Then the lights dimmed, and in drove a bus. We were promised an iconic red London double-decker, but the plain red coach was more reminiscent of a rail replacement bus on the London-Norwich mainline. The doors opened and out jumped a team of multicultural dancers, reading the papers and twirling umbrellas. After three minutes of chaos - a little girl appeared at one point to clamber over some bodies (apparently she had been chosen by Blue Peter viewers) - the roof opened to reveal Leona Lewis, looking terrified that the raised platform she was standing on was about to topple and fall, and a white-haired Jimmy Page, clearly delighted that organisers had decided to cut straight to his guitar solo.

The mostly Chinese crowd looked on in stunned silence. A few tapped their feet awkwardly. Then the star attraction, David Beckham, appeared on the top deck, accompanied by a very attractive, scantily clad violinist - why not, I guess - and to the delight of the crowd proceeded to kick an oversized football randomly in the direction of the Olympic volunteers in the stadium.

Then, as quickly as it began, it was all over, the bus framed by some frankly pathetic-looking flashing umbrellas as it departed the stadium. London's surreal interlude to another Chinese show of power was complete.

Objectively, London's opening salvo to the 2012 Olympic Games last night was awful. Our ramshackle assortment of entertainment and somewhat ham-fisted attempts at comedy - I was half expecting three buses to come along at once but I guess that would have pushed the show way over budget - paled in comparison to Zhang Yimou's vast, highly choreographed, and visually stunning set-pieces.

But after an Olympic Games that, while incredibly impressive, have been distinctly lacking in fun and spontaneity, the fact that an attempt was made at humour, and that the overriding air was one of self-deprecation, was a blessed reminder that some nations are confident enough to be able to laugh at themselves.

China has been a consummate host over this past Olympic fortnight. Never before has a Games been run so smoothly, perhaps never again will we see such impressive venues. And the people of Beijing have been incredibly welcoming and friendly.

But the overall air of intense national pride - when 10,000 people are joylessly yelling "China must win, China must win," over and over again, the effect is faintly terrifying - coupled with China's acute sensitivity and complete inability to take any form of criticism whatsoever, can wear down even the most supportive of guests - I'm talking about myself here.

China should take a great deal of confidence from these Games. Not only has it proved its international doubters wrong in the organisational stakes, its athletes achieved their ambition by topping the medal table by a significant margin.

Hopefully, this should also go someway towards ridding the country of its largely self-imposed victim complex. The state-sanctioned version of history, taught to hundreds of millions of schoolchildren across China, is one of a nation that was repeatedly humiliated by the rest of the world, but which, thanks to the glorious efforts of the Communist Party since 1979 - the first thirty years are conveniently glossed over - has regained its rightful place as a global superpower.

There is no denying that China has suffered at the hands of both the Western imperial powers and Japan over the past 200 years, and it is understandable that there should be some lingering bitterness and resentment. And the government deserves a great deal of credit for lifting its people out of poverty and ushering in economic growth on an unprecedented scale.

But the fact is that China is no longer a victim - it is the world's emerging superpower, its economy is almost single-handedly preventing us from sliding into an all-out global recession right now, and it is moving from being the low-cost workshop of the world into one which, increasingly, is outsourcing its designs and expertise overseas. The sooner it realises this, the quicker it will be accepted, and trusted, by the rest of the world.

If these Olympics can go some way towards enabling the Chinese to be confident enough to make a fool of themselves in front of hundreds of millions of viewers and not really care, then the billions of pounds it has ploughed into these Games may just have been worth it.

But judging by Hu Jintao's fixed, steely gaze as he watched over the closing fireworks last night, I fear that the Chinese government is still a long way off being able to do so.

For all the latest Olympic news, commentary and analysis, check out MSN's Beijing Olympics special report.

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