'Sir Samaranch is an old friend of the Chinese people,' read a banner at the entrance of the exhibition hall bearing hundreds of signatures.

Among the adorers was Zhang Yansheng, a 68-year-old worker from Hubei province. 'I had a haircut yesterday,' said Zhang. 'In China, being tidy is a pretty important part of the etiquette for receiving such a distinguished guest as Samaranch.'

The tribute was the first in a series of adulatory events during a week in which Samaranch received an honorary professorship from an elite university, lectured at an Olympics volunteers training camp and helped launch a national youth tennis academy. Everywhere he went, people followed.

Samaranch is revered for reinstating China's IOC membership in 1979 at the expense of Taiwan and in 2001 millions of Chinese celebrated when Samaranch announced that Beijing would host the 2008 Olympics.

He is portrayed in the Chinese press as a loyal and devoted ally. In Beijing's political context, the phrase 'an old friend of the Chinese people' as inscribed on a banner at the collectors' fair is usually reserved for the most ardent pro-China celebrities like former monarch King Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia and former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger.

Samaranch - more often referred to as Sa Weng in Chinese with the character 'Weng' a deferential address to old men - was supposed to appear at one exhibit, but the crowd grew to such a formidable size that organisers were forced to keep the Spaniard in the VIP room. 'It reminds me of a rock concert,' said a security guard.

Samaranch's image is also closely aligned to a handful of the mainland's most visible heroes and heroines. He personally presented China's first Olympic gold medal to marksman Xu Haifeng at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. But the most well-known example is his friendship with table tennis diva Deng Yaping, who was guided by the Spaniard into IOC service after a medal-laden career as an Olympian.

A former high-ranking official in the government under General Francisco Franco and a former ambassador to the old Soviet Union from 1977 to 1980, Samaranch makes no strange bedfellow with an authoritarian regime like China. He was so good at making deals with China that he forged an alliance of sorts with the country even before its return to the IOC.

'Mr Samaranch, then a vice-president of the IOC, promised his full support for our campaign to be reinstated into the IOC,' wrote Wei Jizhong, a former Chinese sports diplomat, in his autobiography. 'But, in return, he asked for our backing in his bid for the presidency. But China wasn't even an IOC member then, not to mention the voting rights in an election. So we decided to run errands for his campaign.'

Wei didn't elaborate on what 'errands' they ran for the Spaniard but it is widely believed China wielded its influence among third world countries to help Samaranch seize victory in the 1980 IOC president race.

The ensuing two decades of Samaranch reign brought an unprecedented financial boom to the Olympic movement, transforming the IOC from a cash-strapped organisation to a money-spinner that collected a total of US$12 billion in rights fees in the 21 years until 2001.

But bottom line figures aside, cynics would not hesitate to argue that Samaranch also left behind a legacy of corruption and nepotism which culminated in the well-documented scandal over Salt Lake City's bid for the 2002 Winter Olympics. Another thing that flourished as fervently as the IOC's bank balance was doping and widespread abuse of performance-enhancing drugs among athletes.

Your excellency

Samaranch used to insist on being addressed by this title

The number of years Samaranch reigned as president of the IOC 21