As a sentimental person by temperament, I kept telling myself to manage my emotions as the countdown to the grand opening ceremony on Friday neared. I never thought it would turn out to be so easy at the end.

For an individual or a country, a period of 14 years is long enough to become mature, poised and sober. Together, on the road from 2008 to 2022, I learned to grow up with my country and the Olympics.

In 2008, hosting the Olympics was brand-new to China and I was then new in covering the Olympics as a journalist. Seven years later when we won the bid to host the Winter Games, with the 2008 Summer heat still burning in my heart, I did not foresee what it would for Beijing to be the world's first-ever dual-Olympic city. Now it was a reality and I was simply enjoying the moment.

Turning up as simple but splendid, the opening ceremony lasted for about two hours with less performing artists but much visual and acoustic technologies to tell the story of "togetherness" rather than introducing "myself" 14 years ago at the same stadium. The snowflake-shaped Olympic cauldron, formed by smaller snowflakes with names of the participating countries and regions on them, was lit by two young Chinese athletes, newcomers to the Olympics from sports that aren't yet that popular in China - cross-country skiing and Nordic combined.

I looked around the stadium trying to find the cauldron in vein as I entered the stadium before the ceremony and waited with bated breath for the next step after the two bearers laid the torch in the heart of the big snowflake. It was not until the announcer declared the end of the ceremony that I realized that the last torch was the cauldron itself.

Then it was there - the country's second home Olympics and my personal first Olympics attendance.

As the chief director of the opening ceremony Zhang Yimou said, the 2022 would not repeat the 2008 though the latter was "exceptional", not only because of the pandemic situation but also because there was a different China now - more confident in its culture.

In the summer 14 years ago, I was like a festivalgoer full of vigor rushing for assignments and shifts but also making errors and slips. I, like many Chinese fellows, cried and got heartbroken after home favorite hurdler Liu Xiang retreated from the track due to injury. In the winter of 2022, I shared my passion in the Olympics in another way - more sober at work, fitter self thanks to regular exercise and a sound outlook to sports competition.

It was like getting over my schoolgirl crush and focusing on learning to love.

I could not agree more with what Yang Yang said during an interview I was invovled last October. The country's first Winter Olympic gold medal winner in the 2002 Olympics said in 2008 we impressed the world while in 2022 we become people-centered - for athletes and the people.

No, I lied. I failed to control myself actually – but only at two points: the moment when the Chinese national anthem was played and when images of people from all walks of life were displayed during the segment of Tribute to the People. It is this country and its people who made these Olympics happen. I'm as tearful as usual for now I'm deeply in love.

By the time I wrote this story, I witnessed the country's first gold in Beijing from the short track speed skating team mixed relay. The competition was fierce and I, like the skaters, had nothing to offer but maintain my cool. We had nothing to offer but tears after the victory.