What Olympic spirit?

I thought the whole point of the Olympic torch relay is to spread the Olympic spirit. However, I don't think this has been achieved this Olympics (at least not outside of China anyway). Outside of China, the Olympic flame has been anywhere but accessible to the public, separated by at least 3 rows of police officers on each side of the runner (not to mention those Chinese torch protectors - "men in blue"). Despite this Olympic torch relay having the most runners and even reaching the top of the world, it has been a failure.

Closer to home, it is unacceptable that only one third of the runners in the Hong Kong leg of the Olympic torch relay were sportsmen. The rest were local politicans and the rich and powerful. If the Olympic spirit was to be spread, at least one of the 120 runners should have been an average Joe. All they had to do was hold a competition or lottery and pick a lucky winner/runner out of a hat. In my opinion, that would have done alot more to the spread of the Olympic spirit than the torch relay.