Sport and Tradition – Leave the Politics Out

The images I have been seeing on the news lately have been enraging me. There is just no excuse to protest the Olympic Torch run. It is an honoured tradition. The Olympics are supposed to be about the sport. Do the people protesting realize the damage they are doing to our athletes?

Athletes work hard for years and years to be able to go to the Olympics. Who cares where the games are being held? All this talk and protesting takes away from the beauty, grace, and style of the games. The games should be free of politics.

I know that there are some serious issues in regards to China that deserve to have attention called to them, but this is not the way to do it. We can’t expect China to change overnight because of something as simple as sport. It isn’t going to happen.

The news was running stories about protesting the games by not attending the opening ceremonies. That is utterly pointless. And you wouldn’t be protesting human rights issues, you’d be taking away from the games.

There are better ways to protest and send a message to China. We should do it with our trade agreements. If you feel really strongly about this, don’t assault the torch relay runners, just stop buying products manufactured in China. That will send a better message and it will be directed to the people who are in a position to do something about it. It will affect the right people and not our athletes.


3 responses to “Sport and Tradition – Leave the Politics Out”

  1. I agree about hitting back through trade rather than sports events. It seems that people will use any excuse to prop up their pet causes.
    I think we should boycott all of the races, because it reminds me of those poor lab mice in mazes trying to get to the cheese. I’m against cruelty to animals.
    Is this a good argument? No.

    S

  2. As I noted in my response to your comment on this issue on my blog, you do have a point.

    The Olympics SHOULD be just about sports. Unfortunately, they are not. Host nations use them for nationalistic purposes of their own. Hitler did it in 36 — although his champ got beat and so it backfired.

    If protesters of policies are to be asked not to disrupt, seems fair to me that host nations should also be required to focus only on promoting the sports, not the perceived glories of their nation.

  3. I would be so honoured to carry the torch. It’s a once in a lifetime opportunity. And now the torch runners have to worry about being assaulted. It just isn’t right.

    Perhaps China doesn’t deserve to have this honour on the world stage. But they were given the games. There is nothing we can do about that now. The people that made that decision might have thought it would force China to change but they obviously didn’t think hard enough about that. They had their blinders on.

    And now the show must go on. And I will support our athletes.