Left Flank

Robert Lipsyte has a contrarian view of the Olympic movement I'm contrarian enough to applaud the irony of calling the International Olympic Committee an «evil empire».

So, if an athlete just has to compete in the spectacle for his/her career, what is he/she to do, especially with progressives screaming for a boycott? How about handing the flag to a Sudanese refugee to spit in Beijing's eye during the opening ceremony? Beijing has struck back on that perceived insult.

By revoking the visa of 2006 Olympian Joey Cheek at the very last moment because he had the nerve to speak out about Darfur and the Chinese government's support for Sudan's barbarous regime, Chinese authorities guaranteed that the opening of these Games would focus as much on politics as on sports. The burden now is not on China's critics but on its government.

Supporters of China's Olympic bid hoped that this month's events would showcase how much the country has changed. Let's stipulate many of the things they regularly assert: China is more prosperous and, in important senses, more free than it has been for generations. It is in the world's interest, and in America's interest, to deal peacefully with China and to acknowledge its growing power. We have business to do with China, in the most basic sense of that word, on global warming and also on many diplomatic questions. And, yes, China's economic growth has been staggering.

But a dictatorship is still a dictatorship, a fact that so many who highlight China's achievements try to discuss only in the most guarded tones because there is such fear of antagonizing the Chinese government. Yet the Chinese government seems to have no compunction about antagonizing those for whom liberty and human rights take priority over sports and making money.

Barring Cheek, a gold-medal-winning speedskater, was an utterly gratuitous act demonstrating that no matter what the Chinese leaders promised in order to host the Olympics, they will not put up with athletes who have the nerve to challenge their policies.

Cheek and former UCLA water polo player Brad Greiner are co-founders of Team Darfur, a group that calls attention to the suffering in Sudan, which happens to provide China with a lot of oil. Greiner's visa also was revoked.

No tears here-why should the sovereign states of DPRK and ROK have a joint team marching together anyway?

The Taiwanese and Chinese are also playing language games, when the Taiwanese delegation almost boycotted the games because of a demeaning modifier. Beijing threatened to call the Taiwanese contingent, «Taipei, China», as if the Taiwanese were from a province of the PRC, instead of «Chinese Taipei».

Based on a protocol signed with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Taiwan has been participating in international sports events under the English title «Chinese Taipei» since 1981, due to pressure of from China.

Tai continued that according to a pact inked between both sides of the Taiwan Strait in Hong Kong in 1989, all sports teams or organizations representing Taiwan will follow IOC regulations when attending sports events in China.

Both sides also agreed that Taiwan would be referred to as «Chunghua Taipei» in Chinese characters, or «Chinese Taipei» in English, in any of the Olympic Games' publications or public information materials such as brochures, invitation letters, athletic badges and media broadcasts.

In the Olympic standings, the Chinese Taipei team uses the initials «TPE,» with the Republic of China's National Banner Song as its team song, according to Tai.

She explained that if a Taiwan athlete wins a gold medal, the host authorities should play the Republic of China's National Banner Song while the «Chinese Taipei» flag is being raised.

The more politics in this corporate sports spectacle, the more I might enjoy it. It's certainly more remarkable than ugly gray skies.