Olympics and Politics?

Kiwi equestrian gold-medal winner Mark Todd’s comments that if he went to Beijing he’d make some kind of protest against China’s abhorrent actions in Tibet are a sign of an undercurrent of concern that athletes around the world must be feeling.
It would be wrong to take Todd’s comments as too much of a sign – he’s an atypical case, an older athlete making an unexpected comeback at the twilight of his career and already with some gold in his closet – surely he has less to lose from official censure than the vast majority of young competitors. Additionally, it’s plain from the article that his comments were dug out by an enterprising reporter, rather than something Todd had intended to say. Still, Todd knows about the media and knew what he was doing. And the questions he answered will keep coming, everywhere around the world.
The current violence in Tibet, where an absence of free information flow is apparently concealing brutal state repression and perhaps the murder of citizens, is already casting a shadow over the games. For us in the West, Tibet is China’s greatest PR disaster, and the Olympics its greatest PR coup. The appeal to draw these two storylines together will prove irresistible to the world media.
China has already put pressure on governments to ask their athletes to sign a pledge not to speak about politics at the game. A number of athletes have spoken out saying they don’t intend to engage with politics at all. But that’s only to be expected; it would be an athlete with poor survival instincts, or a special case like Todd, who announces now their intent to cause a stir in Beijing.
There is a moral dimension to the Olympics, and I expect it to come to the fore in Beijing. It won’t be the first time there’s been a memorable protest under the five rings.