Before I left for Beijing, I asked people what covering the Olympics would be like. Most of them compared it to working 17 straight Super Bowls.

That sounded ridiculous to me. And my trip to Beijing actually confirmed my skepticism. The 17-straight-Super-Bowl analogy is ridiculous. Kind of.

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The Olympics can’t compare to the Super Bowl, and they don’t need to. Putting one in the context of the other is like comparing a visit to the Biltmore House with a trip to Versailles. Both are really big and great to see, but they deliver two totally different experiences.

The Olympics are a sports marathon. The Beijing Games packed 17 days with non-stop competition featuring 10,500 athletes in 33 venues. And while each day was about sport, it was also about a lot more.

Go ahead and grimace. I know I did the first time I heard that line, but it only takes witnessing one medal ceremony to understand how the Olympics transcend competition.

My first medal ceremony was Michael Phelps’ fourth gold in Beijing and his Olympic-record 10th career gold.

As Phelps, a Russian and an Australian walked to the podium, theatrical orchestra music played, packed with crescendos, trumpet blasts and cymbals crashing. A medal was hung around each athlete’s neck. Then came the U.S. national anthem.

Everyone stands as the anthem is played. They did it again when the Australian national anthem played for swimmer Stephanie Rice a half hour later.

A lot of that fails to translate on TV. NBC rarely plays the introductory music that precedes the national anthem, which is unfortunate because it’s in that time before the athletes receive their medals when you get a glimpse of how much those medals mean.

I’ve never seen athletes so proud before. The anticipation on their faces as they wait for the medals to be draped around their necks has nothing to do with nationalism or representing their country, but has everything to do with pride in their own athletic achievement.

They’ve just joined an elite group and they know it.

It’s a ritual like no other. One that even the Super Bowl can’t top.

And that’s why the Super Bowl analogy rubs me the wrong way. It misses the point.

So when people ask me how the Olympics were, I answer simply: Mind-blowing.

From a sports business perspective, I was blown away by the people who attended, people like Paul Tagliabue, Tim Brosnan, Tim Leiweke, David Stern, Tony Ponturo. I was amazed by the size of the sponsor pavilions, which were as large as a two-story Borders. I was mesmerized by the facilities, which were unlike any I’ve ever seen in the world.

Filling a notebook every day was easy.

I don’t know if every Olympics is like that. One of the major reasons this one blew me away was the China factor. The country is one of the most dynamic places I’ve ever been. It’s changing so fast that it seems to be riding an escalator while the rest of the world climbs the stairs.

But as magnetizing as the China factor was, something tells me that the Olympics are big no matter where they are. London seems ready to prove that point in a completely different, pint-driven, Jimmy-Page kind of way. And I’m hoping I’ll be there to see it.

Here are some final thoughts from my trip …

Three memorable moments:

• 2,008 drummers

When I took my seat inside the Bird’s Nest for the Opening Ceremony, I watched as thousands of men rolled a series of carts across the floor. They placed them in position and then kneeled behind them. This was 30 minutes before the show even started. When it was showtime, they popped to their feet simultaneously and began pounding on the drums. It was electrifying. If the Games had ended as soon as their performance was done, I would have stood up, walked out and still said the Olympics were awesome.

• Michael Phelps’ 10th gold

I watched Phelps collect his 10th career gold medal from the press section, and then hurried downstairs to the mixed zone to try and grab a quote. He was leaving as I arrived and looked irritated. It wasn’t until I heard his quote played back a few minutes later that I understood why — his goggles had filled with water and he couldn’t see. Mishap or superhero?

• Cheering at the USA-China basketball game

The cardinal rule of sports journalists is no cheering, but it must not translate into Mandarin. I had to stand to watch the first half of the U.S.-China basketball game because there were no seats left. In the press tribunes below, Chinese journalists were clapping every time their players scored.

Three things I won’t forget but wish I could:

• The heat and humidity of Beijing

The city made New Orleans in August seem cool. Hot and muggy, most days I had to pack an extra shirt to change into at noon. Nothing was worse than the Opening Ceremony when the humidity topped 90 percent. I discovered sweat glands I never knew I had.

• The Chinese flag at the Opening Ceremony

Nothing is more irritating than being unable to stop sweating and dying for a breeze, then watching a flag raised on a still night that somehow blows completely horizontally. Couldn’t the Chinese have shared that wind tunnel with the rest of us?

• Beijing sun on a hazy day

This is probably my favorite photo to show people. It’s of the sun in Beijing on a hazy day. It looks like a flashlight shining at the bottom of a sink full of dirty dishwater.