Summer Olympics News

Sales of Beijing Olympics tickets in China came to a screeching halt yesterday when an extremely high volume of online visitors, combined with telephone and in-person requests, crashed the ticket system. Only 9,000 of almost 2 million tickets were sold. This would be just an interesting news story if it didn’t raise some disturbing questions. The Beijing Olympic Committee said the system crashed because they dramatically underestimated the volume of online visitors. So, what else is the Beijing Olympic Committee dramatically underestimating? Do they have the ability to handle the volume that is coming, in less than a year, to the stadiums, hotels, restaurants, etc.?

No, wushu isn’t something you eat. It’s a brand of martial arts making its Olympic debut at the Beijing Summer Olympics. Don’t know wushu? Ah, grasshopper, perhaps you know it by its other name— kung fu. That’s the brand of martial arts immortalized by actor David Carradine in the 70s television series of the same name.

The monks showcased in the series still practice kung fu (or wushu, as it’s known in China), but they won’t be competing in Beijing in the Olympic demonstrations. The monks of the Shaolin temple practice a version of wushu that combines religious aspects with the martial art and is not designed for competitive purposes. However, the monks have said that they would appear in the Beijing Olympics opening ceremonies, if invited.

Beijing officials are doing their best to assure foreign journalists that the foreign press at the Beijing Olympics will be free to report whatever they choose. However, members of the press have concerns about whether it is actually even possible to report honestly from China. I think the world will get as accurate a picture of China, as possible, but I don’t know how much digging will actually go on during the Olympics. Will journalists plan to visit prisons and have access to political prisoners held there? Will they have the time or the inclination to really see what goes on in China factories? And do we care?

Many governments have said they would not boycott the Olympics, pretty much no matter what was proved to be true. Recently, the Australian government said that even if it were proved that China was harvesting organs from prisoners, they wouldn’t boycott the Olympics. Of course, the Vice-President of the European Parliament did threaten a boycott if China didn’t reign in the government in Myanmar (Burma), but I wonder if that would ever be carried out?

So, the question is what will the world do if the world’s press DOES find atrocities? Will the world even blink?

With Marion Jones due to plead guilty today in a New York court from charges related to doping, the spector of unfair Games has once again raised its head. Marion Jones may be required to give back 5 gold medals from the 2000 Summer Olympics Games, but what effect, if any, will these admissions have on the Olympics, in general? When people watch an outstanding performance (especially in areas like Track and Field) will they, in the back of their minds, wonder whether that’s real or enhanced? Will more people become more cynical about the Games, no longer the arena of unknown amateurs, but now such high stakes athletics that people are willing to risk their reputation and their health to use illegal drugs to improve their performance?

I don’t know what the long-term effects of this revelation will be? Perhaps nothing. After all, maybe we already expect, on some level, that our favorite athletes might just be enhanced. It would be nice to see a return to the days when the Olympics were more “pure”, but I don’t think all the drug testing the IOC can throw at athletes can put that genie back in the bottle.