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Tom Richmond: Politicians carry the torch for a tarnished Olympic Games ideal
LIAM Tancock has always had one objective – to swim for his country at the 2008 Olympics. The location did not matter. A gold medal would be his passport to the future.
He said as much when he spent every spare hour ploughing up and down a specially roped-off lane at a municipal pool in his home town of Exeter because facilities were so sparse.
I know. His commitment, and speed, put amateur swimmers like myself to shame as we could manage one length to every four that were being completed by the metronomic youngster, years before Beijing was dubiously selected as a host city.
It was the same last week when he broke a world record at the Olympic trials in Sheffield; the first British swimmer to achieve this feat since Bradford-born Adrian Moorhouse two decades ago. "Good preparation," he declared.
Beijing, and talk of an Olympic boycott because of China's oppression towards Tibet and other human rights abuses, was the last thing on his mind.
The same applies to the overwhelming majority of Britain's Olympians. They hope that this year's Games will define their careers. Years of blood, sweat and tears will boil down to the split-seconds that will determine success or failure this summer.
People like Andrew Triggs Hodge, the oarsman from near Skipton, who continues to put his body through agony just to try and gain selection for the coxless four boat that has such a distinguished history thanks to Steve Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent, those two Knights of the water.
To them, the politics is a side issue. They just want to seize the moment and listen to the stirring sounds of God Save The Queen as Britain basks in an Olympic feelgood factor.
Yet, in many respects, it would be very convenient for this Government, and Gordon Brown in particular, if the likes of Tancock, Hodge and even Zara Phillips, the Queen's grand-daughter who will also compete, were more politically-aware and chose to boycott the Beijing jamboree.
It would have certainly avoided the Prime Minister's acute discomfort outside 10 Downing Street on Sunday when he clearly did not want to be pictured receiving the Olympic flame on its now tortuous journey to Beijing – a symbol of sporting values now hijacked as a symbol of Chinese state pride.
Brown's obvious embarrassment could not even be masked by the obtrusive Chinese guards who were rightly described afterwards as "thugs".
This was a stuttering performance – so typical of the Prime Minister's dithering – which was akin to the favourite for the 100 metres sprint stumbling out of the starting blocks, and never recovering their poise.
Yet, as calls grow for sports competitors to boycott the Games – or for world leaders to shun the glittering opening ceremony – some home truths need to be told.
Boycotts do not work. They are a meaningless gesture. The Soviet Union did not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan when various nations, led by the United States, did not turn up in Moscow in 1980. Likewise, the US was probably relieved that the old Eastern Bloc shunned the Los Angeles Games; it gave the imperious home-town boy Carl Lewis a clear run to four gold medals.
Brown needs to be honest – for once. His ambivalence towards China is because he knows that Britain's economy is now dependent upon financial ties with the Far East, and will become more so in the future.
He also does not want the Olympics in London to be marred by acrimony – and the prospect of the Iraq war's morality returning to haunt Britain's own celebration. This is why he will attend the opening ceremony, unlike Nicolas Sarkozy of France.
It would be far better if Brown just admitted this rather than lamely attempting to distance himself from the Chinese regime.
The same is also true of the blathering Tessa Jowell, the Olympics Minister, who hailed the botched torch relay through London as a triumph for free speech in spite of the heavy-handed presence of the Chinese security "thugs" who removed any offensive posters that might have offended their Beijing masters.
"I hope the message that will go round the world is that, yes, there are many citizens of the UK who feel very strongly about China's human rights record," she rejoiced.
Some triumph. The patronising Jowell could not have been more mistaken. The one place where this "message" needs to be heard is Beijing – and its state-run television predictably chose not to broadcast the pictures of the protests on the streets of London.
It did not have to. Images of Sir Steve Redgrave carrying the Olympic flame inside an eerily empty Wembley Stadium, and then pictures of Brown and Jowell with the torch outside 10 Downing Street, were all that China wanted – and this Government had dutifully provided them.
That China is manipulating its own media should not surprise Jowell and her cohorts. The International Olympic Committee knew the risk that they were taking when they voted in 2001 to award the Olympics to Beijing ahead of safer options like Toronto.
They did so because they believed, naively, that China would become more democratic as a result. They hoped for the best and failed to prepare for the worst. And they did so because it is money – and not sporting pride – that now drives the Olympic movement.
This is why China is still insistent that the troubled torch journey will continue its global tour – despite today's planned protest in San Franciso which is threatening to surpass those already witnessed in London, and then Paris, where the flame had to be extinguished.
This procession is simply a money-making exercise for the benefit of the 2008 sponsors. It has absolutely nothing to do with spreading the Olympic motto Citrius, Altius, Fortius – three Latin words that translate as "Swifter, Higher, Stronger".
By awarding the Games to China, the guardians of the Olympic movement merely confirmed that they want to make even greater sums of money, and even more swiftly, than previously.
They did not care about the millions of innocent people left
at the mercy of Chinese-led tyranny.
Or the sports competitors – people like Liam Tancock – who have become political pawns in this boycott battle because the Olympic organisers failed to spot this week's protests emerging like a marathon runner on the distant horizon.
It is conclusive proof, if any were needed, that sport and politics should be kept apart at all times – even more so when it comes to a financially greedy Olympic movement that has never been so morally bankrupt.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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