The number of chief executives who are planning to make their presence felt at the Beijing Olympic Games is likely to rival the number at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland that often attracts over 1,000 business leaders.

Lured by the increasing importance of the Chinese market and the opportunity to help Beijing in celebrating its biggest international event yet, the corporate honchos are heading to Beijing. No surprise, tickets for the Olympics opening ceremony are going for $50,000 in the gray market.

Indicating the interesting trend, a report in the Wall Street Journal mentions that in addition to thousands of athletes, over 80 heads of state and close to 30,000 members of the media, another group that is expected to invade Beijing in full force for the Olympics is corporate executives! The report quotes chief executive of advertising conglomerate WPP Group PLC Sir Martin Sorrell as saying: “You could call it a sporting Davos. It goes beyond just a wonderful sporting occasion. There are political and economic implications.”

In fact, many executives perceive the Olympics as a must event for firms that do business in China, or hope to. Bill Gates is set to attend, for example, as is Rick Wagoner, General Motors Corp. CEO. Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries, India’s largest business house is also said to be heading for Beijing. Few other leading industrialists are likely to follow suit.

Among prominent global CEOs expected to attend the Games are Blackstone Group LP’s Stephen Schwarzman; BP PLC’s Tony Hayward Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s H. Lee Scott Jr. and Terry Leahy, of Tesco PLC; Motorola Inc.’s Greg Brown; News Corp.’s Rupert Murdoch, and. Yahoo Inc. CEO Jerry Yang may also be there. Randall Stephenson, the AT&T Inc. CEO, plans meetings with customers, partners and employees in Beijing.

The top executives of dozens of Olympics sponsor firms, including Volkswagen AG’s Martin Winterkorn and McDonald’s Corp.’s Jim Skinner are also going to be there. Many of these firms will hold board meetings in Beijing. The Olympics is looking more like a corporate meet than a sporting spectacle!

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A Brief History of the Olympic Games: The ancient Olympics captured the imaginations of the Greeks for more than a millennium until a Christianized Rome put a stop on the competitions in the fourth century AD. But the Olympic ideal did not die. This book by American scholar David Young’s titled ‘A Brief History of the Olympic Games’ (Publishers: Wiley-Blackwell) is a succinct history of the Olympics and their modern resurgence.

Prof. Young researched the subject for over 25 years. He reveals in the book how the ancient Olympics evolved from a modest beginning into a grand sporting festival, attracting highly trained athletes, spectators, and even the finest artists and poets.

The Naked Olympics: Tony Perrottet’s ‘The Naked Olympics’ (Publishers: Random House) is a charming book that depicts the world of the games through the vision of imaginary Greek athlete Hippothales, who wanders around the sporting site. The author describes not only the athletic competitions but also the intriguing world of religiosity, pilgrimage and commerce in which they were set.

The acclaimed author brings erudition, humor and attitude to the fascinating tale of the original Olympic festival, tracking the event day by day to recreate the charm in all its compelling spectacle, using firsthand reports and little-known resources including an actual ‘Handbook for a Sports Coach’ used by the Greeks.

Olympic Dreams: China and Sports: Xu Guoqi in his ‘Olympic Dreams: China and Sports, 1895-2008’ (Publishers: Harvard University Press) covers how under Communism, sport became a passionate political project as much as cultural revolution or youth indoctrination.

‘Olympics’ by Chris Oxlade (D K Publishing)is a triumphal history of the games, starting from ancient Greece. Readers will come to discover the pageantry of the original Olympics; Pierre de Coubertin’s revival of the modern games in the year 1896, the variety of Olympic sports, astounding world records and much more in the book.

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