I am walking back from the Bird’s Nest in a light drizzle, thinking that, for journalists, the Olympics are nearly as much about these moments – in the wee hours of the night, story freshly finished – as they are about the actual events. The Olympics seem mine now, personal. Other than a Russian TV crew doing a daily wrap-up in front of the glowing red spaceship of the Bird’s Nest, I am alone.

Or so I thought.

Without warning, four Chinese volunteers appear from nowhere in some sort of über golf cart, as if a normal cart woke up one day and became a Cadillac Escalade. They are offering me a ride back to the Main Press Center.

Read the rest of my tale here:

The striking success of the Olympics – burnishing China’s prestige as the world admired its sporting prowess, organizational skills, and dramatically modern urban landscapes – could encourage profound changes in the country, say a range of Chinese and foreign analysts.

“The implications of the Olympics go way beyond a recognition that China is a sports power,” says Wenran Jiang, a politics professor at the University of Alberta in Canada. “There are many ways in which the Games will move China forward.”

One profound change that a number of China-watchers predict, in light of the international respect China has earned: that its leaders and people will trust the rest of the world more readily, and tone down an often aggrieved nationalism.

Beijing invested this summer’s Olympics with enormous symbolic importance: They were to crown the country’s rise to the status of a global power. The months leading up to the Games, though, showed China at its clumsy, ill-tempered, and repressive worst.

The government’s harsh crackdown on an uprising in Tibet was bad enough for China’s image abroad. Its angry reaction to the protests that crackdown attracted in several Western cities during the international torch relay made things worse.

Journalists’ reports from Beijing highlighted fears that the city’s chronic air pollution would hamper athletes, and drew attention to the way the authorities were sweeping embarrassments under the carpet by sending migrant workers home, arresting dissidents, and clearing the capital of as many foreigners as possible.

Almost from the moment the Games began with a “shock and awe” opening ceremony, however, the Chinese authorities regained control of the narrative, and the sports became the main story line.

“China set out to stage a spectacle that would win victories in the consciousness of others without firing a shot,” says Robert Kapp, former president of the US-China Business Council. “And for many people around the world, I imagine they have succeeded.”

From TV audiences presented with a “picture-perfect” Games, in the words of Professor Jiang, to visitors here impressed by what they have found, the spectacle appears to have served its purpose.

Before she came to Beijing, Nadine Lewman says, her impression of China was of “sweatshops and smog.” Now, adds the Portland, Ore. resident, “I think it’s a beautiful country. Seeing it has changed my image and I would love to come back. They’ve sold me.”

“I think the Games have been a stunning success for the Chinese government in terms of its international image,” says David Shambaugh, Director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University. “This is going to earn China considerable international respect.”

That is critically important, argues Xu Guoqi, a professor at Kalamazoo College, because for more than a century China has been afflicted by “a sense of inferiority, crying out for recognition and respect like a teenage boy. These Games may be a turning point to cure that syndrome.”

For more than a hundred years, China’s leaders have set themselves the goal of recovering international respect after humiliation at the hands of Europe and the United States in the 19th century. For more than half a century the ruling Communist party has made “standing up to the world” a key plank in its platform.

Successful Olympics, suggests Dali Yang, who heads the department of politics at the University of Chicago, could help move China from “a sense of inadequacy … to a feeling that China can do this, and do it well.”

There have been signs over the past two weeks of a more relaxed and self-confident Chinese public. Fans have showed exuberant support for the home team rather than the chauvinism that officials had feared. They even cheered Chinese coaches of foreign teams, rather than treating them as traitors.

If China’s leaders decide that their management of the Olympics has earned the country respect, that “offers an opportunity for the Chinese state and the Chinese people to ditch the nationalist narrative of their identity based on shame and humiliation,” says Professor Shambaugh. “Hopefully they can throw all their aggrieved nationalist baggage away and move on like a normal country.”

Where they might move on to, however, is still uncertain.

“What people saw was the patina of a new China,” says Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based political analyst. “Major questions have still not been answered.”

Some troubling answers to questions about the nature of today’s China could be found in the way the government dealt with people who challenged the image of harmony and prosperity that it wanted to project to the world.

Two septuagenarian Chinese ladies were sentenced last week to a year’s “re-education through labor” for daring to apply for a permit to publicly protest the destruction of their homes. The authorities had said authorized protests would be allowed, but in the end approved not a single application to demonstrate.

That drew a rare public rebuke from the US Embassy here, which called Sunday for release of eight US citizens who had been detained in the wake of pro-Tibet protests and said, “We are disappointed that China has not used the occasion of the Olympics to demonstrate greater tolerance and openness.”

Instances of fakery also drew criticism both abroad and at home: at the opening ceremony the little girl who sang “Ode to the Motherland” lip-synched to the voice of another girl judged not pretty enough to appear; the children representing harmony among China’s 56 ethnic minorities, dressed in their national costumes, were in fact all from the Han majority; the televised image of some of the fireworks was the work of computer graphics.

Chinese gymnastics officials were also angry and embarrassed by allegations that at least two of China’s gold-medal winners were under age, a charge being investigated by the International Gymnastics Federation.

As the music from the Olympics closing ceremony dies away, however, grass-roots anxieties that the government stifled during the Games will make themselves felt, says Professor Yang. “When the overriding preoccupation with the Games has gone, individuals will have more opportunities to assert themselves.”

“With society more confident, some elements may try to lead the system forward faster than the government thinks is right,” adds Moses, which could lead to tensions.

When they are confronted by crises, Chinese leaders “tend to hunker down,” says Moses. “Now we have had a successful international event that has gone rather splendidly … this is a good test of how they deal with success.

“China is clearly out of the starting blocks,” he adds. “The question now is how fast it wants to run and in which direction.”

Boris Johnson, the London mayor who received the Olympic flag on Sunday, has stressed that although “dazzled” and “blown away” by the Beijing Games, he is not intimidated. But Mr. Johnson and others who will preside over Olympic preparations face three challenges that the Chinese had less trouble with: security, homegrown Olympians, and cash flow.

The first was underscored hours after London was awarded the 2012 Games in 2005, when the July 7 bombings startled Londoners into realizing that they, too, were on the front lines in the battle with Muslim extremists. The Olympic site is positioned in the middle of one of Britain’s largest Muslim communities in the east London neighborhood of Stratford.

But the authorities don’t want the metallic grip of security to squeeze the joy out of the Games. According to Games minister Tessa Jowell, “The key thing is that the security is effective and keeps people safe, but it is not oppressive.” A security blueprint is expected at the end of the year. The aspiration is to enable people to soak up the atmosphere inside the Olympic park, even without tickets to venues – a bit like Wimbledon.

When it comes to the competitions, however, the hope is for anything but Wimbledon-like performances. In the tennis championship, Britain hasn’t won a medal in men’s or women’s singles since 1977. There are concerns that the British won’t come up with home champions to grace the 2012 Olympics. Only 12 years ago in Atlanta, the team won just one gold and failed to make the top 30 nations.

“Success is infectious,” says Mark Richardson, one of the few British medallists in Atlanta. “People want to see British athletes being competitive with a chance of getting a medal.”

With an eye on 2012, British Olympic leaders sent young talent to Beijing to observe what turned out to be the country’s most successful Games since 1908, when London hosted the Games, provided the judges, and invented events contested solely by Britons. Despite lacking those advantages in Beijing, the British team won 47 medals – 19 of those gold – coming in fourth in the overall medals count.

British cyclists, backed by multimillion-pound investments from the National Lottery, which were channeled in both facilities and sports science, particularly stood out. Aiming to buoy other sports with cold, hard cash, Britain has devised a national sponsorship scheme called Medal Hopes. But currently, there is a funding shortfall of £79 million ($145 million). With the economy mired in a credit crunch and tight rules restricting advertising on athlete apparel, sponsors could be hard to attract.

A similar cash crunch looms over the actual Olympic site. The budget, partly funded by a £20 tax on every London household, has quadrupled to £9.3 billion. Government ministers have warned that taxpayers will not cough up more. And, Johnson notes, Britain does not have a boom-time economy to bankroll a Bird’s Nest in east London. Instead, he is calling for a “value for money” Games. The International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge has countered that standards must not slip.

Already, there is skepticism that Britain can deliver such a massive project on a tight budget. East Londoners are also asking what will become of the Olympic park after the Games. They fear being saddled with a white elephant.

“There have been no proper discussions on handing the Olympics village over to the local community,” says Kevin Blowe, a local resident critical of the 2012 plans. “Major building projects do not transform areas. I’m sure it will be a great success. But none of that has an impact on the community.”

 Compiled by Ross Atkin.

That is not a bad thing, mind. You don’t have every single venue ready weeks before the Olympics with a “let’s party” sort of attitude. But volunteers’ affability notwithstanding, the Beijing Olympics have sometimes given the impression of Games managed with gritted teeth and an iron fist.

Where Athens was all ease and ouzo – and was a perfectly pleasant Olympics – Beijing has achieved by raw determination an Olympics the likes of which the world had never seen, both in scope and efficiency.

Yet if the opening ceremonies were intended to make this plain to all of us (which they did, emphatically), the closing ceremonies showed another side of China.

There was still that strain of the epic, in writhing, shiny suited men tethered to some steel tower of Babel. But as much as the opening ceremonies were masculine and martial in tone, the closing ceremonies were feminine and – dare we say it – fun-loving.

Beijing, it seems, can also throw a fairly decent party.

Many of the motifs remained – massive, never-ceasing movement, suits that lighted up like Christmas trees in the dark, and a near pathological desire to make anything not bolted to the floor fly. But there was no program here – no agenda to show the world the “real” China. It was less a statement than Cirque du Soleil, writ gigantic.

It was also a clear contrast to London, which, again, is not necessarily bad. It just appears as though the British are planning a production of “Rent” in four years’ time. But when you have David Beckham, what do you need 1,000 acrobats for?

In the end, the closing ceremonies are just that – an end – and they have been successful if they make you long for the two solid weeks of canoeing and table tennis that have come before.

As the ceremony drew to a close, the scenes of the past 17 days were projected, day-by-day on the façade of the stadium roof. Then they froze as the flame went out, and a single firework, like a sparkling tear, fell over the stadium.

There can be no doubt. China knows how to orchestrate an Olympics.

China won.

Is that total medals or gold medals, you ask. Popular vote or electoral college? Is this the 2000 presidential election all over again? Will there will need to be an emergency session of the Supreme Court to decide who the “winner” of the Olympics is.

Of course, there is no official winner. But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) ranks its medal table by gold medals. That means if someone had happened to win 300 silver and bronze medals and no golds here, it would have ended up being ranked 56^th – behind Cameroon, which won a single gold in the women’s triple jump.

What, then, is the point of handing out three medals?

Then again, winning the actual event must count for something.

So here I give you the correct medal table:

1. China – 223

2. United States – 220

3. Russia – 139

4. Great Britain – 98

5. Australia – 89

6. Germany – 83

7. France – 70

8. Korea – 67

9. Italy – 54

10. Japan – 49

The secret math? Three points for a gold, 2 for a silver, 1 for a bronze.

Other crumbs of medal-table trivia:

* By the IOC’s ranking system, Michael Phelps would have finished 10^th, one place ahead of France, had he been entered as a country.

* This is only the second time since World War I that two nations have split the gold medal and total medal lead. The other instance was in the 1964 Tokyo Games, when the US won 36 gold medals and 90 overall medals, while the Soviet Union won 30 gold medals and 96 overall medals.

* Compared with its results from Athens, China improved by 19 gold medals and 37 total medals. By far, the greatest increase came in gymnastics, going from one gold, zero silvers, and three bronzes (1-0-3) to 11-1-6 – a gain of 10 gold medals and 14 total medals. No other Chinese sport saw a gain of more than three total medals.

* China maintained or increased its medal totals from Athens in every sport but three. In each of these three, the decrease was only one. Fencing (from 0-3-0 in Athens to 1-1-0 in Beijing), judo (1-1-3 to 3-0-1), and shooting (4-2-3 to 5-2-1). In each, it increased its gold-medal total despite the decline in total medals.

* Fifty-one percent of China’s medals were gold. That is only the third time that more than half of overall leaders’ medals were gold. The others instances were the Soviets in 1972 and the Americans in 1952.

* Fifty-eight percent of American medals came from swimming (31), gymnastics (10), and track and field (23). After those three, America’s best sports by total medals were shooting and fencing, with six apiece.

* In no sport but swimming and track and field did the US win more than two gold medals. China won more than two gold medals in seven sports: badminton (3), diving (7), gymnastics (11), judo (3), shooting (5), table tennis (4), and weightlifting (8).

* There were six medal sweeps: three for the US (men’s 400 meter dash, men’s 400 meter hurdles, and women’s saber), two for China (men’s and women’s singles table tennis), and one for Jamaica (women’s 100 meter dash).

* Of the countries that won more than 10 medals, two won all their medals in one sport. Kenya’s 14 medals and Jamaica’s 11 medals all came in track and field.

* Of the countries that won more than 20 medals, none is more dependent on one sport than Australia: 20 of its 46 medals (43 percent) came from swimming.

* Eighty-seven countries won a medal, surpassing the record of 80, set in 2000.

* Five countries won their first medal: Togo, Mauritius, Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and Bahrain.

* Three countries won their first gold medal: Panama, Mongolia, and Bahrain.

* Armenia won six medals, all of them bronze. Cuba won 24 medals but only two golds.

* The last medals of Beijing: France (gold), Iceland (silver), Spain (bronze) for men’s handball.

These are just some of the gloomier forecasts for the Olympics that ended Sunday – forecasts that all but evaporated in unexpectedly blue skies over Beijing. Instead, the world watched a 17-day sports extravaganza that delivered drama, passion, and medals with a dash of controversy, but not the strong political undertow that some had predicted.

Fans behaved themselves and a security blanket kept out saboteurs. Only a smattering of athletes tested positive for banned substances. Most visitors found decent food, lodgings, and entertainment, even if the nightly carnival spirit of previous Summer Games was missed. Traffic flowed. Olympic venues dazzled. Gold medals fell to China at a breathless clip, sealing its sporting rise.

One prediction that did ring true was that China refused to allow protests, contrary to its past pledges. Domestic critics were silenced beforehand or snared by catch-22 rules on protest permits. Foreign activists seeking to publicize the cause of Tibet pulled off symbolic stunts that few spectators noticed.

Curbs on foreign media were partially lifted, but critical websites and foreign radio broadcasts remained blocked and Tibetan areas of China were off-limits to reporters. Far from improving human rights in the run-up to the Games, as promised, China was accused by international rights watchdogs of tightening political controls and harassing free-speech activists. The International Olympics Committee did little to enforce China’s earlier pledges.

But for a proud nation that has waited seven years for this moment in the spotlight, such criticisms are unlikely to tarnish the overall success of the Games, or the sense that China’s sporting achievements have been commensurate with its display of modern urbanity and economic might.

“In terms of sports, it was a really high level. Look at the performances in track and field and many other events. They were really fine,” says Ren Hai, director of the Olympics Studies Center at Beijing Sports University.

“This was the first time that Beijing has held such an event … according to an international standard. There were many things that were new for China learn.”

That learning extended to Chinese citizens who were asked to act with greater civility and friendliness when the world showed up at their doorstep. Authorities in Beijing launched campaigns to minimize spitting, littering, and queue jumping, while promoting sportsmanship and cheering for one’s team without belittling opponents.

For the Olympics, tens of thousands of young volunteers were recruited to guide visitors smoothly from point A to B. Taxi drivers in Beijing donned new uniforms and learned to speak some English phrases, however haltingly.

These campaigns paid off during the Olympics as levels of public civility improved, says Sha Lianxiang, a sociology professor at Renmin University in Beijing who tracks attitudes on the subject. She says most local residents support continued government action on antisocial behavior after the athletes and spectators have packed up and left.

“The Beijing Olympics is an opportunity for Chinese people to know themselves, to improve themselves and even to reform themselves,” she writes in an email.

The friendliness has impressed first-time visitors to Beijing. “People here are really, really nice. Everyone wants to help you. It seems as if the government has told people to help tourists. It wasn’t like this in Shanghai,” says Carol Montpart, a graphic designer from Barcelona.

Some spectators grumbled at the lack of proper food inside Olympic venues, as well as long, if orderly, lines for refreshments. Smiling volunteers who were supposedly vetted for English language skills sometimes stumbled over simple requests.

In recent months, Chinese authorities had warned that domestic terrorist groups could strike during the Games. None did in Beijing or any of the other six Olympics cities, but Islamic separatists in western China were alleged to be behind a spate of lethal attacks there. The emphasis on securing the events led organizers to fence off the Olympics Green and require day passes to visit its attractions.

Perhaps the biggest fear voiced before the Games was that persistent air pollution in Beijing would ruin the spectacle and hamper athletes’ performance. As a result, some US athletes arrived in Beijing sporting customized facemasks. Earlier this year, Haile Gebrselassie, the record holder from Ethiopia, citing sensitivity to smog, announced he would not run in the men’s marathon. Smog hung over the opening ceremony on Aug. 8.

But a two-month stoppage at construction sites and polluting factories, along with severe traffic restrictions, eventually managed to shift the noxious haze from the city. As summer rains gave way to blue skies, pollution indices dropped to almost unheard-of lows. Last week, Mr. Gebrselassie said he regretted dropping out of the marathon, as he hadn’t expected such clear weather. He came in sixth in the race in which he did participate, the men’s 10,000-meter.

One sour note for China in recent days has been allegations that several of its female gymnasts, which took gold in the team competition, were underage. The International Gymnastics Federation has said it is investigating apparent discrepancies in the records of the gold medalists’ birthdates. Another disappointment for China was that its great hope for track and field gold, hurdler Liu Xiang, pulled out with an injury.

The Games yielded plenty of heroic achievements, too, from the dazzling opening ceremonies to Michael Phelps’ gold-medal haul in the pool to Usain Bolt’s lightning dashes on the track. The pressure is now on London, the host of the next Summer Olympics, to match Beijing’s grandeur.

Tero Pitkamaki will skip down the runway, and they will know that he has been losing distance on his throws this season because his aim is off. Tero Jarvenpaa will approach the line, and they will expect a barbaric roar, audible even in the Bird’s Nest’s interlaced rafters high above, as his javelin arcs skyward.

There is no place on earth where Saturday’s javelin final will mean more than in Finland and in those scattered sections of the Bird’s Nest where its blue-and-white-clad pilgrims find a seat. For a nation bound by ice and silence, the release of the javelin – and the yawp that always follows – is its own release.

For almost as long as there has been an Olympics, there have been Finns to throw the javelin in it.

In 1908, the first year javelin was in the Olympics, Finns took fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh place. Twelve years later, they swept the medals, taking fourth, too. At Thursday’s qualification rounds, Finland was the only country to qualify three throwers for the 12-person final.

A national obsession

These things happen at the Olympics. A sport becomes intertwined with a nation’s sense of self, making it more than a matter of gold, silver, and bronze, but of national pride. Yet in Finland, javelin is a unique obsession.

According to Vellu Jussila, who watched the qualifying rounds from Section 133 of the Bird’s Nest, “Pitkamaki is the biggest athlete in Finland.”

Pitkamaki himself notes, with some humility, that 2 million of Finland’s 5 million residents tuned in on television when he threw the javelin at the 2005 world championships. A similar audience is expected Saturday. More than decade earlier, when the world record holder – a Czech – was rumored to be using an illegal javelin, Finnish track officials disassembled the spear on live television.

Yet it is more than just adoration. In a nation with 16 times more forestland per capita than the average European country, the vast emptiness is somehow internalized and made a vital part of people’s character. It was here that J.R.R. Tolkien, author of “Lord of the Rings,” came for inspiration – at least in a literary sense, finding in the Finnish epic poem, the Kalevala, a palette for his imagination.

The javelin – strong, primal, and solitary – has become the athletic manifestation of that. “We like to be alone,” says fan Jussila, his chin whiskered in pale hairs, a lopsided grin on his face.

Javelin is a sport for “muscular farm boys,” says Chris Turner, a journalist who has traveled though Finland to understand its curious connection to the sport.

He told a fitness website: “Long dark winters and short glorious summers have produced the archetypal strong but silent national character. The javelin suits the Finns, providing an emotional release for all their pent-up feelings. It’s the dual release of spear and emotion…”

At one Finnish competition, a prize is awarded to the thrower who emits the greatest roar, no matter where the javelin goes.

Passing down the tradition

At another, in the wilderness of central Finland, amid pine forests and lakes dredged by glaciers not far removed, the greatest throwers in Finland gather to teach young throwers what they have learned. Then, as 10-year-olds sit almost at their feet, the men throw for the pure joy of the act.

Over years, the solitary sport has become an almost tribal event. At the javelin carnival of Pihtipudas, one generation is passing its knowledge on to another, “one thrower following another,” says Turner.

Saturday will be a tribal event of another sort.

And Jarvenpaa will roar for them. “I don’t know that I’m roaring. It just comes,” he says. He laughs at himself and his antics.

But in that moment when his body is arched into a bow of bone and sinew to throw a spinning stick as far as a football field, even the farthest reaches of the Bird’s Nest will know, in one man’s bellow, the release of a nation.

Ball must have thought that he was not wearing a jersey with the No. 1 on it, but with a big, blue X. In the third and fourth sets of a five-set match, it seemed that Russian opposite Maxim Mikhaylov was using him as target practice.

“Lloy looked at me like, ‘Please do something,’” said David Lee, who as a blocker, has the job of protecting Ball and other members of the US rearguard.

But Ball did not raise his voice. “Four or six years ago, I would have started screaming, and I would have dragged the team down,” Ball said after the 25-22, 25-21, 25-27, 22-25, 15-13 victory. “But we’ve learned as a team that we need to squash those feelings and do the basic things – serve, hit, dig, don’t let the ball hit the floor.”

In a word, Ball and his team have learned patience.

For a volleyball program nearly 16 years removed from its last medal – both for the men and women – patience has been the lesson of these Games.

Patience to believe in themselves, though the American men had not beaten Russia in a major international competition since 1993. Patience not to panic when Mikhaylov was raining down spikes like a hailstorm. Patience to wait 16 years for the right mix of talent and teamwork and dedication again to emerge.

The fact is, US volleyball players develop later than their competitors. While American volleyball players are in college, foreign players are playing professionally. Mikhaylov is 20, and he is already playing for Yaroslavich, a team in the Russian Super League, one of the top two professional leagues in the world.

The youngest player on the US men’s team, Lee, is 26. Ball is 36 and this is his fourth Olympics. Yet it is only now, he says, that he has understood fully what it means to be a team player. There is a tattoo on his shoulder. It reads: “Anger is a gift.” His volleyball today suggested the opposite was true.

In the end, it was the potential target of Ball’s anger, Lee, that won it for the US, with a spike at 13-13 in the fifth set and then the crucial, final block to win it.

Both the American men and the women – who have also made the final here – are led by a veteran core that has at last reached its international vintage.

Their two gold-medal matches – the women Saturday and the men Sunday – are not the product of two weeks of good fortune. They have been 16 years in the making.

This is not to condone cheating. If she and several of her teammates are under age 16, as several Western media reports suggest, she should not have competed. Further reports that the international gymnastics federation (FIG) will investigate are welcome.

That said, He’s uneven bar routine was the single most breathtaking thing I saw during the Olympic gymnastics program.

I say this not to begin a debate about who performed the best routine in nine days of gymnastics, but to point out that in the Olympics – a competition devoted to continually redefining the frontiers of human performance – He is a Louis and Clark of the uneven bars.

It is clear that she could do what she did only because she is so small. For all her talent, 18-year-old American Nastia Liukin could not have done some of the releases and hand holds that He did. At 5-foot-3, 99 lbs., she is simply too big.

So we return to one of gymnastics’ eternal questions: How young is too young to be a professional athlete, which these girls basically are?

The arguments on both sides can be compelling.

The most obvious argument against the FIG’s prohibition on Olympic competition for anyone under 16 is that, had the law been in force in 1976, we never would have known Nadia Comenici. In a sport built on flexibility and the ability to defy gravity, an age limit can prevent gymnasts from competing at the height of their abilities.

The counterargument that the sort of intense training needed to compete internationally is unhealthy for someone so young. A body that is still growing, critics say, cannot cope with such stress, leading to physical problems.

The momentum seems to favoring the counterargument at the moment. The head of FIG has talked of expanding the 16-year-old age limit to all international competitions – not just the Olympics. According to such a law, American Shawn Johnson would not have been the world all-around champion last year. She was 15.

Putting aside the question of whether this gives authoritarian countries a competitive advantage – since they can more easily alter birth data – there seems to be some sense in this. Sporting federations exist not only to promote the sport, but to protect the athletes – from themselves or those who would use them.

Yet I am glad I had the chance to see He Kexin all the same, no matter what her age.