I don't kno about anyone else, but I am greatly saddened by seeing the Olympics being snarled up in politics once again. Over the years we have had Russian boycotting USA games, US boycotting Moscow games and now this. It really goes against the spirit of the Olympics.

Here's an idea, I wish I could claim it as my own, but I read it some time ago and I think it is brilliant.

If the world's nations are serious about having a true Olympic movement, why not give it a real apolitical home. Buy or acquire some real estate somewhere (historically and culturally Athens would be a good option) and build, collectively the greatest facilities any where in the world. Grant it a politically independent status, run by the Olympic committee.

Every 4 years, then, the nations of the world would come together in a neutral place and have a real games, untainted by national politics

I know this is a dream and there are many difficulties surrounding it, but I love the concept.

Anyone see the farce of the "torch" in London yesterday. ?

LOMO12 asked:
Anyone see the farce of the "torch" in London yesterday. ?
It's even more of a farce in Paris today!

On the lunchtime news today they said that protestors had managed to extinguish the flame twice and the level of violence was higher than in London yesterday.

I like the idea of an independent olympic "state". However, without a return to truly amateur status I doubt that I'll ever watch them again (haven't been bothered since the early 80's). I think the rot started with the East Germans and their shemale athletes and performance enhancing drugs. Now it's endemic. When the US entered their "dream team" for basketball it was the end. The last true olympian was Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards

Thought the torch had to be continually lit untill it got to China?
Is this a case of the French being French living by their own rules!!!???

scunnert wrote:
I like the idea of an independent olympic "state". However, without a return to truly amateur status I doubt that I'll ever watch them again (haven't been bothered since the early 80's). I think the rot started with the East Germans and their shemale athletes and performance enhancing drugs. Now it's endemic. When the US entered their "dream team" for basketball it was the end. The last true olympian was Eddie "the Eagle" Edwards

True, scunnert, it's as if the concept of amateur athletics disappeared in the 1990s. I don't even know when they split the Olympics into every two years for Winter and Summer Games, instead of once every four years.

The way the Olympic Games are televised in the US nowadays, they aren't worth watching. You don't get to see all of the games in every sport, you get cherry picked highlights of the sports considered popular to the general audience. The Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York, in 1980, is the last time I earnestly paid attention to the Olympics. That US vs. USSR hockey game was awesome!!!

LOMO12, I heard on the evening tv news that there is a back-up of the original flame that was lit in Athens, which is accompanying the torch the runners are transporting to China. The torch was extinguished while the runners were on the bus, for safety's sake.

I suggest that the Olympic spirit was junked in 1936 when the Nazis introduced the modern version of the torch relay for the Berlin Games, and at the same time showed how the games might be exploited for political purposes. You'll recall that the Nazis were into torchlight processions too.

The trouble is, the Nazis let the genii out of the bottle, and since 1936 nobody else can ever again resist the temptation to use the games for political purposes. That's just a fact of the world we now live in.

Thanks, Adolf.

http://torchrelay.beijing2008.cn/en/archives/others/n214039831.shtml

LOMO12 wrote:
Thought the torch had to be continually lit untill it got to China?
Is this a case of the French being French living by their own rules!!!???

Hi LOMO12,

nah, it's just a case of the Paris protesters being more successful than the London protesters.

There were protesters of all nationalities in London and Paris.

What've you got against the French BTW?

tinyurl.com/6zz38b

"Lord Coe blasts 'horrible Chinese thugs' who barged their way through London as IOC considers scrapping the relay

Lord Coe last night condemned the army of Chinese "thugs" who accompanied the Olympic torch relay through London.
The head of London's 2012 Games described as "horrible" the burly henchmen who barged their way through the capital, shoving the public and even police out of the way.

His trenchant remarks followed those of former Blue Peter presenter and torchbearer Konnie Huq, who revealed the Chinese minders barked orders at her and pushed her arm up to hold the flame higher.

Sunday's scenes, which were repeated in France yesterday, brought accusations that Britain had imported Chinese police state tactics to control the supposedly showcase relay."

Aye - the olympic spirit!

The protests surrounding the torch relay seem to have sparked a pile of righteous indignation from the likes of George Bush and Gordon Brown at China's refusal to grant independence to Tibet.

Which prompts me to wonder if the same righteous indignation would be unleashed if in 2012 protestors supporting Scottish indepence were to make their presence felt in a similar way.

Robin T Cox wrote:
The protests surrounding the torch relay seem to have sparked a pile of righteous indignation from the likes of George Bush and Gordon Brown at China's refusal to grant independence to Tibet.

Which prompts me to wonder if the same righteous indignation would be unleashed if in 2012 protestors supporting Scottish indepence were to make their presence felt in a similar way.

Wow, Robin. If you think that being in the Union is on a par with the repression in Tibet, you really need to do some reading and get out and have a life!

The mere fact that you were able to post that silly opinion without any fear of reprisal belies your case!

Martin,

although repressive desublimation is preferable to the jack boot the result is the same - an enfeebled nation. Further, the recruitment of MI5 spies in our communities in Scotland does not bode well for FREEDOM!

Martin, the issue for Tibet is not the alleged ill-treatment of the Tibetans but their lack of independence. I doubt if the protestors would be happy however well they were treated by the Chinese government while Tibet is not independent.

Therefore I suggest your remarks were uncalled-for.

Robin T Cox wrote:
The protests surrounding the torch relay seem to have sparked a pile of righteous indignation from the likes of George Bush and Gordon Brown at China's refusal to grant independence to Tibet.

Which prompts me to wonder if the same righteous indignation would be unleashed if in 2012 protestors supporting Scottish indepence were to make their presence felt in a similar way.

Hi Robin,

Gordon Brown had this to say when kosovo declared independence:

"We will continue to provide aid to Kosovo at £23 million ($44.8 million) over the next three years. And make what we can do count so Kosovo has a satisfactory and prosperous future. So today we are recognizing Kosovo as an independent sovereign state. I believe this is a step forward for the international community and this follows the meeting that has just finished with the European Union foreign ministers."

No doubt he'll have pretty much the same sentiments about his own country a few years from now.

Or, he might do a George Foulkes:

"that unilateral independence for Kosovo was not the ideal solution".

I think it's more likely that Foulkes' outburst was probably what Brown was privately thinking.

Re: Kosovo

Tadić urges resumption of negotiations

22 April 2008 | 09:30 | Source: B92, FoNet, Tanjug

NEW YORK -- President Boris Tadić has called on states that have recognized Kosovo to reconsider their decision, and on the UN to commit to relaunching talks.

In his speech to Security Council members, Tadić said that the actions of the 35 countries that had supported Kosovo independence had severely dented the credibility of the UN.

The president warned that unless a compromise solution was found at new talks, Kosovo would become a precedent that would have negative consequences for the international community.
http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php