> The Chinese Shame of Olympic Saga Has an Alternative -- Stop the Games / IHT
>
> --Micky's humble opinion: This is rare but courageously candid view on
> the pathetic true state of the Olympic Games. The way I see it, Olympic
> spirit has been lost in the search of profit for years. --
>
> International Herald Tribune
>
> Stop the Games
>
> By Buzz Bissinger
> Sunday, April 13, 2008
>
> PHILADELPHIA:
>
> In 1894, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, having refused the military and
> political careers typical of a French aristocrat, settled upon the
> revival of the Olympic Games as his life's work. He saw sport as a
> higher calling, a religion. And he saw the Olympics as an event that
> would enhance moral virtue: "May joy and good fellowship reign, and in
> this manner, may the Olympic torch pursue its way through ages,
> increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a
> humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure."
>
> He is considered by many the father of the modern Games, first held in
> 1896 in Athens. But if he were alive today and witness to the Olympics
> over the past 40 years, he would almost surely come to the conclusion
> that his grand idea had failed, that idealism is no match for the troika
> of politics, money and sports.
>
> The Summer Games in Beijing are four months away and already a
> predictable mess. The running of the Olympic torch resulted in arrests
> and nasty confrontations with the police last week in London and Paris
> amid protests against China's recent crackdown in Tibet and other human
> rights abuses. In San Francisco, the only North American stop, the
> torch-bearers played literal hide-and-seek with protesters when the
> route was suddenly changed for security reasons. There have been
> repeated calls for heads of state to boycott the opening ceremonies.
>
> But protests and boycotts are no longer effective remedies. There is
> only one way left to improve the Olympics: to permanently end them.
>
> True, in the world of sports, any plan that puts morality over money is
> unlikely to happen. Commissions are formed only once the problem is over
> and the cheaters will always find another angle - you can bet that some
> lab somewhere is working on the design of a new steroid undetectable to
> testing. The loftier the rose-colored rhetoric, which in the Olympics
> has become an Olympian growth industry, the worse the underlying stink.
> And this is an institution that is rotten in so many different ways.
>
> In 1968, in what became known as the Tlatelolco massacre, government
> troops fired on thousands of student protesters in Mexico City 10 days
> before the Summer Games. Nobody knows exactly how many were killed, but
> the best estimate is 200 to 300.
>
> Four years later in 1972, members of the pro-Palestinian group Black
> September took members of the Israeli team hostage from its quarters in
> the Olympic village in Munich; 11 died.
>
> In 1976, the East German women's swim team won 11 of 13 gold medals, a
> performance that was stunning - too stunning, since it was later
> revealed that hundreds of East German athletes had been using steroids
> for years to enhance performance.
>
> In 1980, the United States and roughly 60 other nations boycotted the
> Games in Moscow because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.
>
> In 1984, although nation-by-nation medal counts are supposed to be
> against the very spirit of the Games, the performance of the United
> States in Los Angeles was ballyhooed. Such chest-beating only reinforced
> the inherent jingoism of the Games, since the Soviet Union and East
> Germany boycotted of course in retaliation for the American snub of
> Moscow. More important, 1984 became the first Olympics in which
> corporate sponsors got their hooks in deep, making the Games too often
> seem like one running advertisement.
>
> As for the 1988 Games, in arguably the premier track event of the
> Olympics, the men's 100 meters, the Canadian Ben Johnson was ultimately
> stripped of his gold medal after testing positive for
> performance-enhancing drugs. In addition, the host nation, South Korea,
> displaced 720,000 residents to build facilities. (According to an
> advocacy group, the Center on Housing Rights and Evictions, China has
> more than doubled that figure to an estimated 1.5 million displaced for
> its Games.)
>
> In 1996, the Olympics in Atlanta were marred by a bombing that resulted
> in two deaths.
>
> In 2000, the American track star Marion Jones won five medals, three
> gold, while taking performance-enhancing drugs, lied about it for seven
> years and is now in prison for perjury. In addition, 40 of China's 300
> athletes withdrew after seven rowers failed blood tests.
>
> Before the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, it was revealed that
> backers, in trying to get the Games, had bribed officials of the
> International Olympic Committee. At those Games, one of the judges in
> the pairs skating competition admitted that she voted to ensure victory
> for the Russian team.
>
> In 2004, the Greek government spent as much as $12 billion on the Summer
> Games in Athens, 5 percent of the country's economy. Yes, part of that
> money went to the building of a new rail system and airport, but the
> Greek government also admitted it had no plan for what do afterward with
> many of the lavish facilities it was required to build for the Games.
>
> At the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, Italy, policemen raided the Olympic
> residences of the Austrian ski federation for possible illegal use of
> performance-enhancing drugs; two members fled the country.
>
> With the Summer Games approaching in August, one event has already
> started, the who-is-in-who-is-out opening ceremonies boycott over
> China's record on human rights (as of the last tally, President George
> W. Bush was in, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister
> Gordon Brown of Britain were out and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France
> was on the fence).
>
> But lest we as Americans feel too righteous, we should consider this: If
> the host country were the United States, every visiting nation would
> have to consider either boycotting the opening ceremonies or withdrawing
> given a disturbing record of our own, which includes the occupation of
> Iraq and the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay.
>
> It is, of course, unfair to make a sweeping condemnation of all the
> athletes who participate. "This is their chance," says Bob Costas, who
> will have his seventh turn as the prime-time Olympics host for NBC in
> Beijing. "It is the culmination of all their time and effort."
>
> It is the single best argument for the Olympics. But still not enough to
> overcome the sordid history.
>
> A permanent end to the Olympics might actually not be that difficult.
> All it would really take is a single act of courage and morality by the
> United States to pull out of the Games forever on the basis that the
> mission is not coming close to being served. A U.S. departure would
> severely dilute the Games since it would no longer be a world
> competition of anything.
>
> But a far stronger factor in the exit of the American team would be the
> likelihood that American corporations would stop backing the Olympics.
> It would also severely diminish the willingness of American networks to
> continue to pay mind-boggling sums for the broadcast rights to the
> Olympics. If Americans aren't playing, Americans won't watch.
>
> In place of the Olympics, world championships would still be held in
> individual sports as they are now, but perhaps at permanent venues
> designed for optimum performance. This would be a good thing for
> athletes. For all the hype, the Games often don't provide the greatest
> performances. In Athens, for example, there was not enough time to build
> a roof for the pool, exposing swimmers to hideous summer heat and the
> backstrokers to blinding sunlight.
>
> Would some athletes become innocent victims with the loss of the
> Olympics? Yes. But it would be nothing close to the number of innocent
> victims killed in Darfur with Chinese-supplied weapons, or in Iraq
> during the U.S. occupation.
>
> The world would carry on without the Games. The ideals set forth by
> Coubertin, instead of being routinely mocked, would be honored by the
> admission that the Olympics have simply failed.
>
> Buzz Bissinger is the author of "Friday Night Lights" and "Three Nights
> in August."
>
> International Herald Tribune Copyright
>
>  www.iht.com