Canada forgoes endorsement for Beijing boycott
Where do the Olympic organizers have to draw the line on politics and the games?
Well the rest of the world took a firm stand last week in saying that they would not endorse a boycott of this years' Beijing Olympics, despite calls from human rights groups demanding the games be cancelled.
Canada and the European Union have declared that regardless of the country's human rights record and the longstanding territorial dispute in Tibet, they would not endorse a boycott of the games according to Patrick Hickey, the head of the European Olympic Committees.
And the refrain was the same across the board with individual Olympic committees, including Canada, stressing that a boycott of the games would only be punishing the athlete and would have no impact on the overall situation in Beijing.
It really makes you wonder when the Olympics stopped being about the sports and the athletes and started being mainly about politics and posturing, because recent years have seen the Games become nothing more than a show of power.
A prime example of this would be the 1936 Olympic games in Nazi-controlled Berlin, presided over by a little Austrian who would soon become one of the world's most vilified people. Even those games, with Germany doing it's best to quell any rumours that may have been swirling regarding the country's political leanings, tried to present a unified and peaceful nation to the world. It was all about politics.
Yes, it's hard to avoid politics when you're bringing the large majority of nations together for one event, some of whom may well be at war with each other, it's natural for that to carry over. But at the same time, the Olympics should be about the people who've spent years training and preparing for these Games and not about a country's personal strife.
Now don't get me wrong, the reasons behind the suggestions for a boycott of the Beijing games can't be overlooked - they are most definitely a problem. But they aren't the athletes' problem.
Well the rest of the world took a firm stand last week in saying that they would not endorse a boycott of this years' Beijing Olympics, despite calls from human rights groups demanding the games be cancelled.
Canada and the European Union have declared that regardless of the country's human rights record and the longstanding territorial dispute in Tibet, they would not endorse a boycott of the games according to Patrick Hickey, the head of the European Olympic Committees.
And the refrain was the same across the board with individual Olympic committees, including Canada, stressing that a boycott of the games would only be punishing the athlete and would have no impact on the overall situation in Beijing.
It really makes you wonder when the Olympics stopped being about the sports and the athletes and started being mainly about politics and posturing, because recent years have seen the Games become nothing more than a show of power.
A prime example of this would be the 1936 Olympic games in Nazi-controlled Berlin, presided over by a little Austrian who would soon become one of the world's most vilified people. Even those games, with Germany doing it's best to quell any rumours that may have been swirling regarding the country's political leanings, tried to present a unified and peaceful nation to the world. It was all about politics.
Yes, it's hard to avoid politics when you're bringing the large majority of nations together for one event, some of whom may well be at war with each other, it's natural for that to carry over. But at the same time, the Olympics should be about the people who've spent years training and preparing for these Games and not about a country's personal strife.
Now don't get me wrong, the reasons behind the suggestions for a boycott of the Beijing games can't be overlooked - they are most definitely a problem. But they aren't the athletes' problem.
