Sport is about athletes competing against each other fairly and honestly. Sport allows individuals to test themselves against others and become the best they can be. Sport’s aim is to bring people of different backgrounds and cultures together and to celebrate each individual’s love for their chosen sport. The people of Tibet and Darfur have forgotten what sport, and more importantly the Olympics, are all about.
There is little doubt the Chinese organisers intended to use the games as a boost for their country’s economy, increase the tourism industry’s revenue and make China a place rich in ancient history and modern technological advances to show it is becoming a powerful nation. Pretty much the same reasons were used to bid for the London 2012 games, only on a lesser scale as the UK already is a well established western country. But as China’s organisers, government and enemies know, the country’s relationships with its peers are balanced on how well it can host the games and if it can make a success of them. So therefore China’s enemies have taken it upon themselves to disrupt the games as much as they can by protesting.
Many are protesting against China’s human rights record as well as their army’s presence in Darfur and the trouble in Tibet. And while this ruins the pretty picture created to cover these actions by the Chinese, it highlights them because the Olympics are always in the media spotlight. Therefore taking the shine off the games overall and turning the whole sporting event into bandwagon for those who oppose the Chinese government’s actions. This, in my humble opinion, is not acceptable.
With a sporting event as big as the Olympics, where the entire world focus’ on one city for two weeks, it provides the opportunity for these protestors to highlight their issues. But it distracts what the Olympics mean and what they were invented for. They are a way of strengthening relationships with people of other countries and backgrounds through a recreational activity such as sport. The focus is on competition and being the best you can be by competing fairly. A large proportion of the above has been lost since the turn of the millennium. And so the people of Tibet it seems, have disrupted and spoiled a sporting event by protesting. What they don’t understand though, is that they are spoiling the event for the athletes and innocent spectators. They are the people who we want to see in these two weeks during August. Not the people who see sport as an excuse to highlight a political issue. Politics and sport do not mix. As highlighted by the only decent thing George W Bush has been quoted to say during his eight year reign as president, “I view the Olympics as a sporting event.”
And rightly so, George. Rightly so...
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