BEIJING (AP):

WITH 100 days to go, the battle has been lost to keep politics out of the Beijing Olympics.

Shimmering venues and billions spent to remake Beijing into a modern city have been dulled by pro-Tibet protests, chaos on the torch relay and an anti-Western backlash by angry Chinese who sense their coming-out party is being spoiled.

A year ago former International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Juan Antonio Samaranch predicted Beijing would be the "best in Olympics history". A few weeks ago his successor Jacques Rogge said the Games were "in crisis".

The shine is off, and the question is this: Can China's communist government and the IOC return some lustre by squeezing sports and goodwill back into the Games? The Olympics have been visited by politics before - Berlin '36, Mexico City '68, Munich '72, to name a few - but these are the most contentious since the boycotted 1980 Moscow Olympics.

Public relations problem

"The Chinese leadership has a major international public relations problem on its hands," said David L. Shambaugh, a political scientist and director of the China policy program at George Washington University.

"The Chinese government and citizenry are now involved in fighting a propaganda war with the West and the Western media in particular," Shambaugh said. "This stance, taken together with hyper Chinese nationalism, has all the makings of a public relations disaster for the Olympic Games."

There's a rancorous atmosphere in Beijing these days.

Deadly riots in Tibet last month spurred anti-Chinese government protests in several cities of the torch relay, forcing the last-minute rerouting of many legs. In Pakistan, India and other countries, organisers shortened routes, tightened security, and turned the relay into invitation-only events that kept out the general public."

The coverage has been met with a propaganda war by China's state-run media, accusing the Western media of orchestrated bias - particularly CNN and the British Broadcasting Corp.

There have been nasty outbreaks of Chinese nationalism, fuelled by the attack on a young Chinese woman in a wheelchair who defended the Olympic torch during the Paris leg. Claiming an insult to national pride, protesters have gathered outside the French retailer Carrefour in a dozen Chinese cities with scuffles erupting between Chinese and foreigners.

Showing power

The Beijing Olympics were political seven years ago when the IOC chose the one-party state. These are not just Beijing Olympics, but China's Olympics and unprecedented spending on every phase has been aimed at showcasing the country's growing economic and political power.

There's time to rescue the Games, but Beijing must get lucky.

A tiny turnaround began with several low-key events yesterday to mark 100 days: a mini-marathon race around the two iconic Olympic venues - the new National Stadium known as the Bird's Nest and the Water Cube where the swimming and diving will be held - and the finals of a four-year contest to pick official Olympic songs.

This week's arrival of the torch to mainland China could signal the worst is over, with the domestic portion of the relay likely to have few pro-Tibet protesters. English-speaking Chinese volunteers may also soften the edge. At test venues, they've swarmed foreign reporters, helping with translation, or simply stood at attention wearing yellow, smiley face buttons.