Keep politics out of the Olympics

It’s something that touches us all -- in Hants County, Nova Scotia, Canada and the world – the Olympics and the athletic ideal.

In local sports, the Windsor Royals made it to the Atlantic Junior Hockey Championships, and Avon View athletes are doing well in awards, for just a few examples. Athletics have a special place in human society.

But internationally, things are becoming more politicized and the Olympic institution and tradition are in jeopardy as never before.

Reports are Tibetans have a real beef with the Chinese government. But that’s no excuse for ‘free Tibet’ activists and supporters to be attacking the Olympic torch run in the streets of the world – or for world leaders to boycott the games official opening.

It’s unbecoming and it stands to erode one more institution that helps keep things as civil as they are in this decreasingly civil world.

Yes, governments use hosting the Olympics to showcase their countries, and even themselves.

And China, the largest country on Earth by population, and one of the oldest civilizations, has much to show.

Six decades ago, the country was a basket case. It’s now moving ahead at great speed economically, and socially. And some day, it might have a style of government more to our taste.

Are there improvements to be made in China? Likely. But nobody knows better what they are and how to deal with them than the Chinese people – of whatever ethnic group.

Naïve? Likely, but what’s the alternative from here?

But one thing is for sure, let’s leave the politics out of sports – including the Olympics.

It’s amazing that the Olympics even retain what reputation they have.

From the first days of the return of the games, just before the last century, class was a factor. The cult of amateurism was really a hidden guarantee that the wrong sorts – folks who had to stoop to being professional athletes for a living – didn’t sully the games.

We then went through the Berlin Olympics and the sideshow that the Nazis made of them. But, they still survived that assault. And they pulled through the Munich massacre of Israelis athletes by terrorists in 1972.

And then there was the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Olympics by the West over the1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

It hurt no one but the athletes and the Soviet people.

The Cold War had brought Soviet bloc attitudes that sports was war by other means – with the resulting questionable use of drugs and other means to ensure victory.

And, even outside that context, doping has remained -- touching our own Olympic team. No one has been immune.

In fact, in times of strife, maybe it’s more incumbent on us all to keep the Olympics going and as pure as they can be, despite all the glitter governments tend to throw around.

People have to leave sports – including the Olympics -- alone. If not, well, maybe it’s time to pack it in for good.

As it stands, South Africa was almost assured of hosting the games sometime soon if it had wanted then, but it turned them down in favour of hosting the 2010 World Cup Football finals. And don’t forget Halifax hauling out of the 2014 Commonwealth Games bid.

So beware.