The Beijing games came to a close with the dignity and gravitas that befits the world’s greatest sporting event, as Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis promised to give the world every inch of their love. Actually I think they left out that deathless line from “Whole Lotta Love,” but it was still pretty hilarious, trying to figure out what the phallic ur-metal anthem of my high school years had to do with the Closing Ceremonies of the Olympics. Although if reports of the overheated libidinous behavior of the athletes at the end of every Olympics are true — what do thousands of young men and women with perfect bodies who have just finished a competition they’ve been training for for four years do? — we should be grateful that we weren’t treated to “The Lemon Song.”

Closing Ceremonies are always a peculiar combination of Cecil B. DeMille spectacle, athletes cutting loose and rock songs from the Paleolithic Era, and Beijing’s was no exception. The Chinese may have won the most gold medals and have demonstrated that their half-inspiring, half-terrifying state-communal machine can generate thousands of perfect athletes, perfect buildings, perfect fireworks, and perfect medal-ceremony beauty queens with identical bustlines, but they need work on their pop music. “Beijing, Beijing, I love Beijing” may set Chinese President Hu Jintao’s knee a-jiggling, but it ain’t going to bust the charts in New York or London. In the rock finals, 235-year-old guitarist Jimmy Page won gold easily over his Chinese rivals, outdoing Dara Torres to become the oldest medalist at these games. When China becomes free, loose and crazy enough to turn out some kick-ass rock ‘n’ roll, it will be time to hand it the keys to the future, kick back and enjoy the Eastern age.

For me, the fun part about Olympic Closing Ceremonies isn’t the spectacle, but the sight of all the athletes pouring out together onto the vast field, hamming it up and laughing and taking pictures and embracing each other and nervously making friends with other young people who have just gone through the same incredible ordeal, who have done their best, have won or lost, and are now trying to take in this strange moment of international camaraderie that only happens once every four years. It’s a silly, chaotic scene, but it always moves me. For it’s an image of what the world could be like, if its wars were only on the playing field and flags were only brightly colored pieces of cloth.

And looking at the athletes, at their faces now goofy and relaxed and joyous, you think of all the faces you’ve seen in the last 17 days. Faces of utter concentration, of determination, of high seriousness. Faces that remind you what human beings look like when everything inessential has been stripped from them. Faces like prayers. Faces that lift up your heart, and break it, and put it together again stronger than it was before. The faces of the human race. Our faces, in those secret moments when we’re at our best.

A gallery of faces floats up from these blazoned past two weeks. There are the faces of victory. The exultant face of Beijing Insta-legend No. 1, Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, as he shattered the world record in the 100 meters, an intoxicating triple shot of youth and cockiness and sheer, untrammeled fun. Australian 100-meter hurdler Sally McLellan after she won silver when American favorite Lolo Jones clipped the next-to-last hurdle, leaping into the air in disbelief, an electric shock of joy running through her face, leaving a memory trail in the nerves that she will carry until the day she dies. The gut-clearing roar of Beijing Insta-legend No. 2, Michael Phelps, after teammate Jason Lezak stormed back to outtouch French swimmer Alain Bernard in the 4×100 relay, every buried ounce of passion pouring out of Phelps, only his teammate’s deed capable of releasing it, not his own. The sobs of French gymnast Benoit Caranobe after he won unexpected bronze in the all-around, a bronze worth more to him than some athletes’ gold. The ferocious warrior face of Cuban hurdling great Dayron Robles, his sensitive-professor look gone as he clapped his hands, puffed out his chest and shouted out “Ahora! Ahora!” before destroying his competitors and the world record in the 110-meter final. The guttural, monster-mash cackle of Chinese gymnast Yang Wei after living up to the expectations of 1.3 billion people by winning the individual all-around. The radiant, childlike smiles worn by every member of the U.S. men’s basketball team after they beat a brilliant Spanish team in a thriller, 12 NBA greats with monster egos and salaries who played as a team, experiencing a different and perhaps deeper satisfaction than they had ever known before.

And the faces of defeat. The devastation on the face of Chinese 10-meter platform diver Zhou Luxin after his weak final dive, followed by a brilliant effort by Australian Matthew Mitcham, cost Zhou the gold medal and a Chinese gold-medal sweep in all eight diving events. The shell-shocked face of American gymnast Alicia Sacramone after she fell for the second time in the team competition, an almost unbearable glimpse into the agony of an athlete who knows she has let herself and her teammates down. The bitter disappointment carved on the face of Chinese hurdler Liu Xie, Athens gold medalist, the second-greatest 110-meter performer in history and the pride and joy of his country, after he had to withdraw because of injury — and the tears that flowed down the faces of thousands of ordinary Chinese people when they learned what had happened. The heart-wrenching glimpse of Lolo Jones, standing alone, her interviews now done, sobbing uncontrollably after a mistake she only made once or twice a year cost her her Olympic dream.

And the faces of sportsmanship and consolation. Chinese diver Qin Kai and Canadian diver Alexandre Despatie clasping hands after their duel was finished, that classic terse male gesture of respect, the kind that reveals that sports can be not just a game but a noble contest. Lolo Jones, who had fallen only moments before, interrupting her interview to embrace silver medalist Sally McClellan as she walked past and say, “Good job, hon.” Kenyan 800-meter runner Wilfred Bungei gently approaching a disconsolate Yuri Borzakovsky after the Russian failed to qualify in the semifinals, first touching his back, then putting his right arm on Borzakovsky’s, then leaning over and putting his head tenderly down next to the Russian’s, the small black man comforting the tall white one.

These are some of the faces that we’ll remember from these games. They’re the reason we watch them. Because they show us the human striving for excellence — and because they teach us that striving isexcellence. That’s a lesson that endures after the records and medals are forgotten.

“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!” Hamlet delivered that glorious speech, the quintessential statement of Renaissance optimism, but he didn’t believe it. What he really believed was this: “And yet to me, what is this quintessence of dust? Man delights not me.”

Most of the time, most of us see the world the way Hamlet does. The earth is a sterile promontory, and man just an animal that wanders around on it. But there are certain things that offer a different view of what our species is capable of, and the Olympics is one of them. Past the hype and the commercialism, the drugs and the politics, you can still see him, that ancient and always renewed figure on an orange and black vase, running ahead of us, taking us with him.

The South Korean city of Pyeongchang was awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics on Wednesday after failing in two previous attempts.

Pyeongchang defeated rivals Munich and Annecy, France, in the first round of a secret ballot of the International Olympic Committee.

Needing 48 votes for victory, Pyeongchang received 63 of the 95 votes cast. Munich received 25 and Annecy seven.

The Koreans had lost narrowly in previous bids for the 2010 and 2014 Olympics.

Pyeongchang will be the first city in Asia outside Japan to host the Winter Games. Japan held the games in Sapporo in 1972 and Nagano in 1998.

Olympic gold-medalist Lindsey Vonn has recreated that scene from “Basic Instinct” on the cover of ESPN magazine. And by “that scene” I do mean the one in which Sharon Stone infamously flashed her naughty bits to the world. It’s the magazine’s movie issue — why ESPN has a movie issue, I do not know — and it boasts a bunch of athletes reproducing classic film scenes. The headline accompanying the saucy cover photo is, wait for it, “Back to Basics.” Funny, I thought the magazine’s Body Issue — which came out just a few months ago and features exquisitely athletic naked bodies — was a return to “basics.” But it doesn’t get any more basic, or base, than paying homage to the most famous crotch shot in cinematic history.

London Olympic organizers say a record 5,000 doping tests will be carried out at the 2012 Games.

The local organizing committee has signed a memorandum of understanding with Britain’s anti-doping body and will implement the testing program under the authority of the International Olympic Committee.

London 2012 director of sport Debbie Jevans says the size of the testing program will give a “strong message that drug cheats are not welcome at the London Games.”

UK Anti-Doping will train anti-doping officials and assist them during the event to carry out a 10 percent increase on the 4,500 tests conducted at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

View the slide show

Canada’s women’s hockey team has scored quite the controversy by daring to celebrate their win against the U.S. on Thursday by sipping beer, guzzling champagne and smoking cigars on the ice. After the fans filtered out of the stadium, the ladies returned to the rink still in uniform with gold medals draped around their necks. They laid on the ice, poured champagne in each other’s mouths and soaked up the Olympic glory. Their revelry hardly would have garnered any attention, except for one minor detail: there was an Associated Press photographer on hand to capture it all on film.