There are many reasons to feel troubled by the Winter Olympics in Beijing, but the athletes and competition are worth your attention, Rosenberg_Mike writes
BEIJING — The Olympics are back in China, whether athletes and activists want them here or not. In spirit, the International Olympic Committee is just another corporation willing to take a PR hit in exchange for the treasure of doing business with China. Put its tax-exempt status aside. Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, were the only two cities that bid for these Games to the end, and the IOC went where the money was . It is the IOC’s way.
If that makes you uneasy as you watch these Olympics … well, it should. The Olympics are a wonderful sporting event colored by geopolitical tensions and packaged by a morally amorphous organization with a history of corruption. This is why the IOC can act the way that it does: It has a product people want to buy, no matter who is selling it or where. Thursday evening here, IOC president Thomas Bach predictably and pathetically praised the hospitality of the Chinese people. Well, sure.
The IOC has covered its motives in “Olympic Movement” rhetoric for decades. It’s not a new story—just a story that gets more coverage with every Olympic cycle. And that is for the best. The IOC’s tightrope is getting thinner.The last time the Olympics were held here, in the summer of 2008, activists from Team Darfur were denied entry. President George W. Bush came, and in his speech dedicating the new U.S.
In 2008, Bush stuck around and watched part of Michael Phelps’ historic week. He spoke of a “constructive relationship” with China. The country’s record was deplorable then, but fewer people were paying attention. In the spring of 2008, when a reporter asked longtime NBA commissioner David Stern whether losing a team in Seattle would hurt his league’s Asian presence, Stern confidently and proudly rattled off a list of cities in China that were more vital to the NBA’s future than Seattle.
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