You're an Olympian in Beijing? We tell you how to think

Not too far-fetched. The women's World Cup was moved to the U.S. in '03 because of the SARS threat in China.

Granted, complete Olympic venues and hotel space and such are much more complex, but if FIFA is willing to do it, surely the IOC has some contingency plans in place.

 

If I'm an Olympian with no shot of winning anything, I absolutely take a political stand to get tossed out of the country and become a national treasure for the rest of my insincere life.

 

Huge difference between the Olympics and women's world cup.

But that being said if the Chinese are reneging on promises they made in order to host the Olys the Olys should pull out.

If the Olys refuse to pul out — I do believe it is unfair to the athletes to have individual countries boycott when clearly not every country will — countries should should find other ways to take a stand. That extra gas they ordered to make sure they had enough fuel to run the country while the games were going on that they ordered - its not coming any more. That grain you ordered, not coming either. For example anyways.

Punishing your own athlete should be the absolute last resort.

My other question is, if the Olys do pull out, what kind of backlash do they face, considering China paid an billions upon billions of dollars to mondernize the city just for the games and built all of those state of the art facilities for the games.

 

DAMMIT! I came on this thread just to post that suggestion. ;D

And yeah, the Olympics ain't going nowhere. They were held in Nazi Germany, for crying out loud. You really think they're going to pull out of China this year?

 

I assume anyone advocating that the U.S. pull out or lead a boycott will also advocate we stop trading with China, despite the economic ramifications, yes? Because saying "We won't let our athletes compete here because of what you're doing to Tibet, but we're happy to sell you our products at a good price" seems pretty hollow.

 

Not to mention that, with the way the Chinese government is viewing these Olympics as an exercise in nationalism, a boycott would be the ultimate slap in the face. What happens then? High tariffs on exports to the U.S.? Trade war? They nationalize some of those factories our companies have been building over there?

And with the way the Chinese come down on their own protesters, is there any chance they do something similar to a foreign athlete who tries to do something outrageous? If, say, a French athlete wins something (unlikely, I know, since the French never win anything) and does a victory lap with a French and Tibetan flag, do they toss him in jail for a while?

 

Not a chance.

 

I can't imagine the Olympics going anywhere. At this point, four months away, there's just not enough time to get everything done that would need to get done to make a move.

If there was a natural disaster that made holding the games in Beijing impossible, that would be one thing. The Oly committee could improvise where needed. But I don't think they're going to want to move for political reasons unless they've got an ironclad reason (another Tiannamen Square, maybe a terrorist attack, etc), plus time to get a fully-functioning, pomp-and-circumstance games going elsewhere, and I just don't think they've got the time to do that.

People find reasons to protest or complain about every Olympics host. Athens nearly bankrupted Greece in 04. I can't remember what Sydney had in 2000 but I'm sure it was something. And internationally, the US hardly has a favorable approval rating what with Iraq, Bush, etc. So anywhere here would draw protests internationally. That just seems to be how it works. People use the games as a protest galvanizer, but that hardly means the games are going anywhere.

Besides, I'm sure Beijing bribed enough officials during the bidding process that those in charge are fine with things as is.

 

Funny. The original plan was to fill Tiannamen Square with sand and play beach volleyball there, but the mandarins in charge of the games killed the idea.

 

Some may be surprised to hear this from me, but hell yeah we should stop trading with them. If it takes an American athlete to start the process with a boycott I'm perfectly fine with that.

 

eugene.

 

Has cindybj stopped by?