Endless speeches by bureaucrats about the meticulous preparations to satisfy the nation's obsession with gold medals and a murky selection process were on the agenda, with China's Olympians in attendance.
Droves of athletes, identically dressed in red and yellow uniforms filled the grand meeting hall at the State General Sports Administration in downtown Beijing on Friday morning less than two weeks before the Games begin.
The country's stony-faced sport czars presided over an austere rally marking the launch of the 1099-plus Chinese Olympic delegation, the largest in the country's history and the biggest among all nations attending the Games.
Sitting in the neat rows, Yao Ming dwarfed all his compatriots, Liu Xiang wore his serene smile and Guo Jingjing kept her cool, if not dismissive, manner.
It was an impressive show of strength from the star-studded mainlanders for such a small audience.
Then the stable masters began speaking.
'President Hu Jintao's recent visit to the national training centre has given us enormous inspiration,' Liu Peng, the sports minister said, referring to the national leader's inspection of those chosen athletes who are being relied on to bring gold to the nation and thus bolster the government's image.