One of the big secrets of tomorrow’s opening ceremony of Beijing 2008 was revealed today. Yao Ming, China’s NBA basketball star, will be its flag-bearer for a second consecutive Olympics.

The choice matters. The honour, for instance, could have gone to Liu Xiang, who became an instant icon when he won the 100 m hurdles at Athens, the first Chinese male to get an athletics gold medal. In contrast, for all his success in America as a basketballer with the Houston Rockets, Yao is part of a national basketball team placed eighth at Athens. And nobody is putting pressure on the team with expectations of a gold this time.

It is also a little more than a coincidence that, as the China Daily noted today, for the past six Olympics, beginning Los Angeles 1984, men’s basketball players have been China’s flag-bearers. (China, of course, returned to the Games in 1984, so calculate the percentage.)

Basketball is fast becoming China’s favourite sport, and the toughest tickets, say local reporters, to acquire for these Games, after to the opening ceremony, are for the China-US basketball tie on August 10. “I imagine it will be crazy,” laughs Jiang Yi, a writer with the Chinese edition of Sports Illustrated. “It is the most anticipated event after the opening ceremony.”

China Daily, in a front page report, echoed the excitement: “The game...has attracted the attention of even the two countries’ top leaders.” It continued: “The August 10 basketball China-US match has been compared to the ping-pong diplomacy of 1971, which set the base for China-US exchanges during the Cold War. Only this time, the foundation will be expanded and strengthened.” So, President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao have dropped by to meet the team and ask after Yao’s foot injury this February.

... contd.