As far as hitting the "point", a boycott would be, as Marisa Tomei so eloquently said in My Cousin Vinny.........
Dead on, balls accurate
Posted on 04/13/2008 8:21:42 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
BEIJING (AFP) - Olympic officials here warned world leaders wishing to snub China over its crackdown in Tibet that using the Beijing Games will only hurt their own athletes, as a top US aide said a boycott would be a "cop-out."
US President George W. Bush and other leaders have come under pressure from activists to boycott at least the opening ceremony of the August extravaganza to protest at issues including Tibet and China's human rights record.
China has built up the Olympics as a prestige "coming-out" party onto the world stage and would likely take a dim view of any leader who said they were not going to attend because of political differences.
But major world figures have not, as a rule, attended every Olympics -- in the 2004 Games in Athens, British Prime Minister Tony Blair was one of the few at the opening ceremony, to which Bush sent his father.
Moreover, International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials and the Beijing Olympic organising committee point out, it is not the host country that sends out the invitations but each country's own national committee.
So while a possible decision by French President Nicolas Sarkozy or others to skip the opening ceremony may disappoint China, it would effectively be a snub of athletes from their own country, Olympic officials said.
"This is how it has worked in the past and this is how it will work at the Beijing Games," said Zhu Jing, a media and communications department official at the Beijing organising committee.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and UN chief Ban Ki-moon are among those who have said they will not be present when China opens the Games on August 8.
However, they have insisted those plans were in place before the unrest in Tibet, with Sarkozy the only one linking attendance to whether Beijing opens dialogue with the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama.
Bush has left it unclear whether he will attend, but his national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, said Sunday he believed diplomacy was a better way of pressuring China over Tibet than the "frontal confrontation" of a boycott.
"That's a cop-out. If other countries are concerned about Tibet, they ought to do what we are doing, through quiet diplomacy," he said on US television.
IOC President Jacques Rogge said a boycott of the opening ceremony, where every competing country marches into the main Olympic stadium behind their national flag, would perhaps hurt athletes but nobody else.
"There are some politicians who talk of a boycott not of the Olympic Games, but of the opening ceremony," said Rogge, who was here last week for a series of meetings.
"I think the athletes would be disappointed because the athletes of a particular nation would not have their political leaders applauding them," he added.
Rogge said political leaders were free to decide whether to boycott the Games or not, adding: "Even if they did, that would not harm the quality and the success of the Games because the Games are about the athletes."
He insists all 10,500 athletes will compete after the 205 national committees unanimously rejected any boycott and condemned political meddling in sports during a three-day session in Beijing last week.
Henri Serandour, head of the French Olympic committee, summed up the mood when he said that even if Sarkozy demanded a boycott, the national team would still take part in Beijing.
Many Olympic officials are adopting a "wait-and-see" attitude on whether a boycott will materialise, and believe public opinion is on their side.
"I am saying adamantly that public opinion around the world does not want a boycott," Rogge said.
"They are against a boycott because they know that the only victims are the athletes themselves, who are innocent."
In Beijing, Rogge chaired an executive meeting of the IOC and declared the Olympics in "crisis" after protests badly disrupted the torch relay in Europe and the United States.
The scenes of chaos were a public relations disaster for the Olympics, with activists using the opportunity to vent their anger.
I heard the other day that no U.S. president has ever attended the Olympics. If that's true, what a great idea to start with a country as wonderful as China!
(The scenes of chaos were a public relations disaster for the Olympics, with activists using the opportunity to vent their anger.)
Perhaps they could have thought of that before awarding the Olympics to a dictatorship. Any kind of black eye would reflect badly at not only China, but also at the IOC who awarded it the games. This would finally make them think twice before risking another fiasco.
As far as hitting the "point", a boycott would be, as Marisa Tomei so eloquently said in My Cousin Vinny.........
Dead on, balls accurate
Quiet diplomacy is the cop-out.
China is a dictatorship, it will not allow athletes to make religious or political statements, still persecutes Christians and charges them with crimes which could have the death penalty, and of course, mistreats Tibet.
The IOC should never have awarded this nation the honour, and Bush should not even consider going. If it is true that no president has ever gone to an opening ceremony in another country, it is not a “boycott” to not go now, but it is appeasement if he does go.
Speedo's strong suit New technology draws closer scrutiny as records fall
lol.. Modern technology enhancing athletes performances, this isn’t the first time I would think.
I haven’t studied up on this new suit, saw some press on it recently.
Different sports have benefited from better design and implementation but the sport in its essence is or should ideally be the same, one would assume for competition’s sake itself , as long as everyone is wearing the same suit.. or is it?
a sticky wicket , that one. ;-)
China and the Olympics would suffer more than the individual athletes. The Olympic Committee made it political when they chose China as a host nation. It's not like they didn't know what China was.
It’s time to settle on ONE site and concentrate on the athletics.
This is in our hands.
I won’t be watching the Olympics, but I will be paying attention to who the sponsors are, so I’ll know who else to boycott.
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