March 21, 2008

IOC blindness, again

Lemme see if I've got this straight. The International Olympic Committee doesn't think condemning China for its actions in Tibet is a good idea (there's not a word about Tibet on its website), nor does it think women should have a ski-jumping event in Vancouver in 2010.

The IOC always maintains it's not a political organization, just a sports one. That's nonsense, and Jacques Rogge knows it. Even selecting Beijing was a political act (1 billion potential Olympics viewers/consumers were too big to pass up!), and the expressed hope that China would somehow behave itself and maybe even loosen up on human rights was surely not believed.

What annoys me is the Committee's hypocrisy and unwillingness to use its clout to chastise the aging bureaucrats in the Chinese Communist Party.

As to the ski-jumping, as recently as 2006 skiing's ruling body said "The International Ski Federation has ruled that ski jumping is too dangerous for women."

Now the excuse is there are only 80 ski-jumping women in the world. As the video above shows, there were fewer women than that participating in snowcross at the time of the last Olympics, but that didn't stop the IOC from sanctioning a women's event in 2006. My guess is that the potential snowcross viewers were the hip younger folks the IOC wanted to attract to the Games; apparently there's no similar demographic it can identify which might want to watch women ski-jump.

Whom will the IOC offend next?

Posted by Linkmeister at March 21, 2008 11:43 AM | TrackBack
Comments

"My guess is that the potential snowcross viewers were the hip younger folks the IOC wanted to attract to the Games; apparently there's no similar demographic it can identify which might want to watch women ski-jump."

That's pretty obvious, I'd say. You think half-pipe is a real sport?

I did read one suggestion that nations boycott the opening ceremony. Perhaps Nike and Coca-Cola would permit that.
=================
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/

Posted by: Peter at March 21, 2008 05:18 PM