A Full Reverse Into The Still Screwed
July 30, 2008, Matthew Good The International Olympic Committee has reversed its recent decision to disallow Iraq to participate at the Olympics. Unfortunately, only two members of Iraq’s Olympic contingent can attend, as the deadline for admissions for numerous events has passed, leaving only Iraq’s track and field athletes eligible.
There’s nothing like training for the Olympics in one of the worst locations in the world only to be told that you can’t attend the games and then have that decision reversed too late for you to participate anyway. Had the IOC dealt with the situation differently, Iraq’s entire team would still be attending.
In related Olympic fever news…
As many of you are aware, the Chinese government actively blocks access to a variety of different websites. For example – BBC journalists covering the games only have access to the BBC’s website in English, they cannot view it in Chinese. Amnesty International’s website is also inaccessible, though that should come as no surprise given their recent report - People’s Republic of China: The Olympics countdown – broken promises - which you should read.
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What the hell? Why was Iraq disallowed? I didn’t think the Olympics were supposed to be about peace and unity.
I too miss the edit function — I mean why were they disallowed to BEGIN with.
That’s insane. Idjit olympic officials. :(
Basically the IOC accused the Iraqi gov’t of interfering with the olympic commission in their own country. Since the whole process is supposed to be free of political influence (nominally, anyway), the Iraqi olympic team was originally disallowed.
Is it just me or has the IOC become worse as of these Olympics? Prior to this I think we could count on a certain level of competence insofar as consistently taking kick-backs, making politically-based decisions in a forum that is supposed to be apolitical - I at least could bank on them pissing me off.
Now, they make a bad decision, try to correct it, and make it worse. At least before I figured they could organize a piss-up in a brewery - but I’m not so sure now.
Wow - what’s worse than being unethical AND incompetent?
I think there should be some sort of special provisions made to extend/disregard the deadline in this case. But we all know there won’t be.
How convenient…”woops, we made a mistake. Sorry, better luck next time”. Talk about making useless gestures to try and save face.
And the stuff with China…WOW. Kind of goes against everything the game’s are supposed to represent (in fairness, blah, blah, blah).
Not surprised at all though. Which is rather disheartening.
It’s nice to see that they reversed their decision. It’s too bad that it came a little too late. If I were them, I would just allow the whole Iraqi team in regardless. They can save face with this mistake easily by doing so.
Also, knowing China blocks content all the time, this news of them blocking BBC and other sites comes as no surprise.
*game’s? Yep, bring back the edit feature. Or maybe I could use my built in edit feature (brains) before I hit publish?
Far from blocking access to websites, the government in China is building brick walls around hovels, huts, and other kinds of poor housing structures which start with the letter “h”. According to one report on the NYT website yesterday, a single A4 sheet of paper with computer-printed black lettering appeared tacked to the wall of one such hut near the Forbidden City (Strangely, even for China, it was not signed and did not bear any official markings.), and police showed up the next morning along with an “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition”-size throng of bricklayers to block the “eyesore.”
It’s just another day in Chinese zoning. It’s all a little too ironic: The effort to wall off property in order to block out an “eyesore” which may damage China’s image on the world stage seems utterly defeated by actually walling off the property in the first place. I suppose the same might be said for censorship of websites.
Here’s the article or one similar to the one I read: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/sports/olympics/29beijing.html?ref=olympics
I watched that on the news last night… it’s such bullshit.
The whole thing seems kind of unethical in a sense anyway. Why would you disqualify them in the first place?? That is complete discrimination.
Second, i concur as to your thoughts re: these poor bastards have trained their asses off for the last 4 YEARS for this circus, only to be told they can’t…. THEN given false hope that they in fact can, too little too late, as the deadline has past them by…
Is this an attempt by the committee, to APPEAR as though they were making good/negating their piss poor decision to allow these folks to play- in order to show their “fairness”(?)- when in fact, they most likley and conveniently allowed the deadline to pass by (”oops”), before passing on what would otherwise be good news?
Rediculous!!!!… and very sad for those that spent there hard earned dollars and time into working so hard for somethign they may never have the opportunity to experience again.
okay, maybe not unethical, but definately not morally sound
The “broken promises’ doc reveals just how devious the regime is; like “lumping data on those sentenced to death together with those sentenced to other heavy punishments such as life imprisonment, making it impossible to determine exactly how many had been sentenced to death and executed.” Thanks for the heads-up Matt. Pretty reading it ain’t…
The IOC and the Chinese goverment are too concerned with cleaning up the air pollution in time for the games to begin. Forget about cleaning up human rights violations, they get swept under the rug. No wonder the smog still won’t lift, because both are full of hot air!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
China is fighting a very uphill battle in the long run in containing or keeping down opposition to the state. It will not be that long before China will struggle keeping up with pensions (in spite of undeniably spectacular growth recently) among a plethora of other catastrophic problems… and I’m certain there must be at least some communities in China (both online and physically) that must be organizing against the authorities. Perhaps it is only a matter of time.
It’s all just a ploy. They said no and I’m sure some people didn’t like that so they said yes after the deadlines. They win. Iraq loses, again. I think they should disregard the deadlines for those athletes. They are not to blame, they are athletes who have been training for the Olympics, a dream to anyone, that must have shattered them.