ShareThisBy GREGG PATTON
The Press-Enterprise
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
The 2008 Olympics is about one year away, and already the Beijing Games are like no other.
The usual run-up questions about blown construction timetables and worrisome security issues have been replaced.
Is China going to stop jailing political dissidents, stifling journalists and executing an estimated 10,000 people each year?
Will China free Tibet, stop threatening Taiwan and quit supporting the brutal regime in Sudan?
We suspect the answers will all be "no," in dozens of foreign languages. But when China committed to staging the Olympics, and the International Olympic Committee gave it its blessing, the examination of the country's dismal human rights record was inevitable.
How this communist nation treats its own people, as well as its guests next year, and conducts its world business figures to hang unofficially over Beijing as prominently as the five-ring banners.
"The Olympic movement, when it picks a country, it opens that country up to a lot more scrutiny and public attention," said U. S. Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth in a conference call with reporters recently. "That's part of the bargain."
Not that Ueberroth has ever been a fan of mixing sports and politics. He called the boycotts of the 1980 and 1984 Games (which he ran in Los Angeles) "misguided" and "stupid."
He prefers a more benign approach.
"Our position is, there are organizations and governments that deal with international problems and issues," he said. "It's not a burden the USOC and our athletes are equipped to deal with.
"The real value of the Olympics is it helps open up things in the area of human rights. It has a lasting effect."
It's a nice theory, but it seems unlikely that China will turn into an enlightened democracy any time soon.
And the people "better equipped" will continue to be heard from. In recent days, organizations such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders have used the one-year-out milestone to criticize China's repressive policies. Last month, a group seeking freedoms in Tibet organized rallies in major league ballparks.
Ironically, the autocratic and repressive nature of the Chinese government has eliminated the usual worries. The building of Olympic venues and villages, as well as major improvements to roads and subways, is reportedly ahead of schedule. Terrorism threats -- an issue dating to the Munich Games in 1972 -- seem unlikely in tightly wrapped China.
No doubt the Olympics will bring its own troubles. Doping scandals come with the territory these days. Considering the ongoing drug issues in such sports as cycling and track and field it's too much to hope for a clean Games, even in vigilant China.
We'll also be stunned if Beijing avoids judging controversies. Any sport in which officials from across the globe hold up signs to decide gold, silver and bronze always flirts with disaster.
Somewhere in all of this, of course, Michael Phelps will swim, and 10,000 of his fellow athletes from around the world will go "Citius, Altius, Fortius," as best they can.
Yes, the Olympics will get around to sports, too.
Just don't expect the Americans to clean up in the medal count as efficiently as they have in recent Games. The breakup of the Soviet Union and the obliteration of that steroid-glutted, sports super monster East Germany turned the United States into the country to beat the past few Olympics.
In Athens in 2004, the Americans won 103 medals to China's 92 and Russia's 63. But USOC chief executive Jim Scheer is already softening the fall, calling the Americans "underdogs," especially to the host country.
China has strengthened itself in its traditional core sports, such as gymnastics and diving. It also has made big strides in sports it has previously dabbled in, and craftily invested in some of the obscure sports "that don't have well-entrenched participation around the world," according to Scheer.
It all adds up to a potential bonanza of medals for the host country. Citing recent world championships in all of the Olympic sports, Scheer said, "If you look at how it all adds up, (China) is blowing us out of the water."
It's all part of the game plan for China. It's throwing itself a welcome-to-the-world party. China hopes its dazzling athletic performances; its modernization of Beijing and an efficient staging of the Games will forge a more favorable opinion for itself.
And if they are brilliant enough, maybe the world will go blind.
(Contact Gregg Patton at gpatton@PE.com.)
