On 13 July 2001, all over China, people were watching TV and waiting for word from Moscow. Noodle joints and clothes shops had set up televisions on the street so that everyone would be able to watch the announcement revealing if Beijing would host the Olympics or not.

Tiananmen Square was full of expectation. Would China win the Olympics?

The rest is history. Beijing won and the whole country went wild in an outpouring of emotion like China has never seen. The Olympic Games have become crucial to China's self-esteem, to its sense of belonging on the international stage.

He Zhenliang, then a member of the IOC's executive board, presenting the last statement of the Beijing 2008 bid, didn't mince his words.

"Choosing Beijing as the host city for the Olympics, you will bring the first ever games in Olympic history to a nation containing one-fifth of the world's population, and 1.3 billion Chinese people will dedicate their efforts to the Olympic movement. If you award the Olympics to Beijing, I can assure you that seven years later you will be proud of the decision you make today."

The People's Republic of China won its first Olympic medal in Los Angeles in 1984; by the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, it was finishing third in the medals' table. A year on, the world's most populous nation was suddenly in a position where it was hosting the Games. So, will the world indeed be proud of the Beijing Olympics?

The questions began immediately – would the Beijing Organising Committee (BOCOG) be able to do it, to build enough stadiums to house this kind of event and develop an infrastructure to cope with millions of visitors?

How would they transform this ancient capital into a worthy host city for the world's biggest sporting event?

In 2001, it had been only 12 years since tanks had rolled into the same Tiananmen Square that the people were celebrating on and killed perhaps thousands of democracy activists. Would the Olympics improve China's human rights record? Would journalists be able to work there, and what about Tibet?

These questions have been answered, with varying degrees of success, over the intervening seven years.

Looking at the transformed megalopolis that is Beijing in 2008, with only days to go until the Games, the answer to the question of whether a modern city worthy of hosting the Games could be created in time has been answered resoundingly in the affirmative. The yellow-tinged haze of pollution, however, prompts nagging doubts.

But while the sky may be bleak and dirty, Beijing's new architecture looks amazing. There is the Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron-designed Olympic Stadium, the bird's nest structure to host the opening and closing ceremonies as well as track and field events, which is one of the largest enclosed spaces in the world with a capacity of 100,000.

Then there is the striking loop of the CCTV Tower, built by ultra-cool architect Rem Koolhaas's Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA). Perhaps most striking is Sir Norman Foster's golden-roofed Terminal Three at Beijing Capital International Airport, the largest covered structure ever constructed. The National Aquatic Centre or Water Cube, a blue piece of science fiction not far from the stadium, also impresses.

"It is quite unprecedented how Beijing has transformed itself in the last six or seven years," said Michael Kwok, director of Arup China, the structural engineers which have been involved in the design and execution of nearly all of the new projects for the Olympics.

Of the 31 Beijing Olympic venues, 12 are new, 11 are older buildings that have been extensively remodelled and eight are temporary structures. It's a building boom unlike anything Beijing has seen since it was built along cosmological lines in the 14th century by Chinese master builders, centred on an axis around the Forbidden City, with the Temple of Heaven and the Temple of the Sun as key points.

This building boom has been matched by impressive levels of organisation elsewhere. Police have set up a bilingual lost-and-found hotline. Inspectors are checking for illegal use of the Olympics logo in ads and are conducting anti-doping sweeps in hospitals. Engineers are readying the electric grid in Beijing for the biggest power surge in its history.

The Games have made their mark in other ways. A total of 4,104 Chinese have been named Aoyun (Chinese for "the Olympics") in homage to the Beijing games, according to figures released by the Ministry of Public Security. The authorities have taken dog off the menu to avoid offending foreign sensibilities, have standardised road signs and menus to make sure foreigners can understand everything, and have introduced not one but five mascots.

But there have also been massive social changes wrought by reconstruction, which came at the cost of many of the ancient network of alleyways and courtyard houses of old Beijing. Whole communities have been forced out of their homes into the massive suburbs newly built on the outskirts of the city.

"Chai" (demolish) signs went up all over the city soon after the successful bid, and millions of Beijing residents have had to make way for the Olympics, often in a brutal and arbitrary manner with little compensation, according to the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions (COHRE).

BEIJING BY NUMBERS

17,400,400 Beijing's approximate population

50,000 The number of children born every year

110,000 The number of hotel rooms available

12,852 The length of the road network in kilometres, including 216 kilometres of expressway

450,000-500,000 The number of overseas visitors expected during the Games

50,000 The tonnes of dust dumped on the city during one dust storm in 2002

10,000,000 The number of bicycles in the city

1,000,000 The number of motor vehicles that authorities are hoping to clear off the roads to reduce the threat of pollution during the Games

200 The length in kilometres of the underground system – not quite as long as London's 400

Despite the destruction of large swathes of the city, most of the people remain unapologetically enthusiastic about the games.

"I hope China holds the Olympics successfully and our country's economic situation can be more prosperous. People in Beijing will become more friendly and warm-hearted because we will welcome a lot of people from all over the world," said Wang Qun, 30, a painter.

China is also keen to be successful in competition at these Games. There is a desire to dispel the traditional suspicion that China struggles to win anything outside the usual disciplines. When Liu Xiang won the 110m hurdles at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, it was the first win for China in a sprinting event. Many Chinese believed he had overcome a genetic disposition that limited Chinese people's ability to win in track and field.

These days the rewards are greater, and China is aiming to succeed in every discipline.

Watching China's young women gymnasts going through their paces in the vast Olympic Training Centre in Beijing, poised delicately on beams or somersaulting at dizzying speeds across acres of mats, it is hard to imagine these games being anything less than a triumph in sporting terms for China.

A red banner adorned with the slogan "practice hard – win glory for the country" urges the young women on to even greater exertions at the back of the state-of-the-art facility. Located at the eastern edge of the Temple of Heaven, the centre looks like a software company campus, with rows of buildings and playing fields each dedicated to a different sport.

The biggest political crisis the Beijing Olympics have had to deal with came in March this year, following the government's tough crackdown on monks and other anti-Chinese demonstrators in Lhasa.

Beijing accuses the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of inciting the protests and riots that tore Lhasa apart, before spreading to other Tibetan areas in Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

The Chinese government responded to the international outcry over the crackdown by blaming foreign media for misreporting the events in Lhasa, attacking CNN in particular.

They then went ahead with the torch relay, which made its chaotic way across the world – via London, Paris and San Francisco – in April and May, dogged by embarrassing protests.

China is planning to deploy more than 94,000 security personnel at the Games, which means that uniformed and plain-clothes operatives will outnumber the 10,500 athletes by nearly nine to one.

Beijing is taking no chances – all over the country dissidents, underground churchmen, bloggers and others are being rounded up and told to stay out of the way until everyone goes home.

Then there is pollution: the air in Beijing remains foul with days to go.

BOCOG concedes that the city has a problem, and China failed to meet pollution-busting targets in 2006, but insists everything will be all right on the night of the opening ceremony on 8 August. They say that the measures they have taken to combat pollution will ensure clean air for the athletes and the 3.5m visitors expected in the city.

The IOC has spoken up in support of Beijing's efforts to combat pollution, though it has had to concede that this Olympics will not be a great one in terms of securing records in endurance events. Chief inspector Hein Verbruggen said Beijing "looked ready" but added that the IOC needed "to see how temporary measures will impact on air quality".

International leaders hummed and hawed over whether to attend the opening ceremony on 8 August. Then the Sichuan earthquake struck on 12 May and all bets were off again.

There was huge sympathy for China in the wake of the earthquake, which has left over 90,000 people dead or missing, and the relatively open way in which the government responded to the tragedy.

Questions about press freedom have dominated the build up to these Olympics. The government freed up press restrictions at the start of last year, meaning a reporter no longer had to apply for permission to visit anywhere outside of Shanghai and Beijing. That being said, restrictions imposed in some areas after the earthquake were a reminder of how quickly the government returns to form.

About 40,000 journalists will cover the Olympics. So how will this closed society deal with thousands of foreign journalists wandering around?

Journalists will be given freedom to report and can complain formally if they encounter problems, said Li Changchun of the all-powerful Politburo. "If you are dissatisfied, you can complain directly to Liu Qi, president of BOCOG," he said.

This is to be applauded and everyone hopes it will be honoured during the Games. But it will be interesting to see the reaction the first time an athlete stands up with a Free Tibet T-shirt/tattoo/banner on the podium.

"For the Chinese, sporting events represent something deep and fundamental – a validation of their nation's long labours towards international acceptance, a sign that China has become a full member of the community of nations," writes Xu Guoqi in his recent book about China and the games, called Olympic Dreams.

The IOC's decision to award the games to Beijing prompted a host of questions, but we will have to wait until 8 August to really get the right answers.

RISING SONS – AND DAUGHTERS FIVE CHINESE ATHLETES TO WATCH

CHENG FEI (Gymnastics)

Cheng is China's most decorated female gymnast, having gathered a collection of five world championship gold medals. Having just turned 20, her sights are set on a vault and floor exercise Olympic double in Beijing. The host nation expectantly awaits.

DU LI (Shooting)

Du Li has already had her 15 minutes of fame in the Olympic arena. In 2004 she claimed the first gold of the Games, winning the 10m air rifle competition. Four years on, the 26-year-old is expected to deliver the first golden shot of a home Olympics. "I enjoy the pressure," she says.

LIU XIANG (Athletics)

Ever since "the Shanghai Express" hurtled to Olympic gold in the 110m hurdles four years ago the pressure has been on him to deliver a "Cathy Freeman moment" with a home victory on the track. In his path is Dayron Robles, the Cuban who clocked a world record 12.87sec in June.

YAO MING (Basketball)

The 7ft 6in Yao is guaranteed to be the biggest thing in the Beijing Games, to the host nation at least, even though the Chinese basketball team are not expected to finish among the medals. An NBA star with the Houston Rockets, the Shanghai native is China's most popular sporting figure.

FENG KUN(Volleyball)

Feng was voted the most valuable player when the Chinese women's volleyball team won the Olympic title in Athens in 2004. Four years on, the 29-year-old is the team captain and team setter in an event ranked second to the men's 110m hurdles among the golds most wanted by the Chinese public.