Via China Law Blog and Shanghaiist, this is a very interesting story from ESPN Magazine. It's interesting not just for the writing, but because of the focus. This is an Olympic themed article that is devoted to showing readers the China that BOCOG "doesn't want them to see":

Right now, he says, there's a ban on private gold mines. But national bans don't mean much out in the provinces, where the whim of local power brokers carries more weight than any edict handed down from Beijing. "If I'm caught, I'm not afraid," Liu says. "I'm well-connected, and I know everybody in the village."

From afar, Liu has been following the Beijing 2008 campaign. He isn't that interested, but, as a businessman, he has respect. "The Olympics have nothing to do with my life," he says. "What they are doing is just to make some money."

Squatting a few feet away, Yan, the old man, says the Olympics are Beijing's business, though he does hope to have one connection, which is one more than the peasants of San Lou. Maybe, he says, they will use the gold he helps blast out of the Earth to make the medals. He knows the highest honor an athlete can receive is a gold medal, and his gold, he wants you to know, is 100 percent pure.

Soon, it's time to go. Behind the dormitory, workers push tons of rock. Above the mine face — where darkness is broken only by a swaying, naked bulb — five red flags hang limp, twisted around their poles, all of them turned pinkish-white by the sun and the rain and the smoke. They are flags of warning.

Yan continues sipping his tea, lighting another cheap cigarette. He has 20 days off after six straight months in the mine; he'd lost so much weight the bosses were worried. He looks ancient, with the hard years underground wrapped around him like a bundle of yesterday's news.

Before leaving, we ask how old he is.

"Fifty-three," he says.

The article is an interesting read in and of itself, especially for anyone who hasn't had opportunities to travel much in China's less-then-glamorous interior. But the thing that I think is most striking about this article is what it represents in terms of the direction that coverage of China's Olympics is likely to take over the next year and through the Games themselves. This is a sports magazine, after all, and it has devoted thousands of words to an article which is about socioeconomic conditions in the Chinese interior. They've linked the story to the Olympics, but in reality the Olympics are a springboard for taking a look at other interesting aspects of China. That's what makes this an "outside the rings story"; an Olympic story that is largely about things unconnected with the games themselves.

ESPNDespite the recent loosening of restrictions on foreign correspondents, it's a safe bet that BOCOG and the Chinese government in general would prefer most of the coverage to be well inside the rings. But the very things that make China's Olympics more interesting than an average Olympics will be the things that drive this kind of coverage. I'd say that a lot more journalists will be compelled to go "outside the rings" in China than in Athens, Sydney or Barcelona. Going beyond the rings in Athens might have made for nice travel write ups and the occasional issue story, but nothing like what China will generate.

There will be more stories like this in the months ahead, and, like this one, they won't all come from the usual-suspect publications that do most China "issue" journalism.