Boycott To Theaten 2008 Olympics?

With China’s stranglehold on Tibet, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games could suffer a repeat of the 1980 Olympic Games hosted in Moscow. With the 1979 Moscow invasion of Afghanistan came a whirlwind of global-political and civilian criticism that eventually led to the infamous boycott. Among the Countries who chose not to participate were Canada, United States, Japan, West Germany, and in a wonderful seemingly satirical twist… China. Which in this instance China seems like one of those friends we all have, you know the one, they can dish it out but can’t take it?.. yeah, that’s them.

Looking back on the boycott of the 1980 Olympics, what exactly was gained from it? To be honest, I can’t think of anything nor have I found any evidence to support any type of political or personal gain. Moscow didn’t even start to withdraw their troops from Afghanistan until 1986! Can we really sit back and think to ourselves “yep, we showed them!”?

But back to the point at hand, how far are we willing to go to make our feelings known and honestly, why does it even concern us? China apparently broke their treaty with Tibet way back in 1949, so why do we choose this point to take action? And if this is such a political hot topic, then why did the Olympic Committee even allow China to host the games to begin with? Whatever the case may be, this is a matter for political leaders to deal with, however, the way those leaders are choosing to deal with it is to suggest to keep the world class athletes for partaking, those who have trained (some their entire lives) for this event could find their hopes dashed for 2008 Olympic glory. And for other athletes, this will be their last chance at Olympic glory as their bodies age past the point of competition.

To this day, many athletes who were forced to miss out on the 1980 Summer Olympics regret that they were denied by our government - their right to compete. They got caught up in a situation that really had nothing to do with them. All they wanted to do was compete for their Country, family, friends as well as themselves. Being a former athlete myself, I can’t even begin to imagine the amount of disdain I would have for my own country had I been refused the chance to compete for such an honor as the Gold, Silver or Bronze medal.

As civilian protests continue and political leaders look for ways to communicate their opposition to China’s unwelcome involvement in Tibet, all we can do is sit back and wait, watch and see how it will effect the Olympics. I for one would like to see the games played to their fullest potential, with all the Countries who are supposed to be there compete for one of the grandest prizes in all of sports. Not only for the medals they could win, for the pride of their Nation.

I can’t help but to think that an Olympic Boycott is nothing but a ridiculous display of “I’m taking my toys and going home” - an immature and altogether selfish demonstration, but that’s only if you ask me.

JT-