SPORTS: The 2008 Olympics

At the WAIS conference, the session on sports will feature Carlos Lopez, Douglas Carroll and Elias Castillo. The agreement at Moscow to hold the 2008 Olympics in Beijing illustrates the political importance of the games. There were three Western candidates: Toronto, Paris and Istanbul. It may be assumed that the US favored them. Paris in particular put on a great advance publicity show with an unpublicized but apparently huge budget. The large French delegation to the Moscow meeting included Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and both the present and last mayor of Paris. French people were seen crying at the news of the defeat.

The victory of Beijing was hailed with wild, but well-orchestrated jubilation in the Chinese capital. Jiang Zemin made a rare public appearance. The victory was interpreted as a retort to the US-led campaign against China on the basis of its human rights record. The political importance of the Olympic Games was strikingly evident when, to the dismay of Hitler, Jesse Owens, a black, won the 100 meter and 200 meter sprints and the broad jump at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. To some extent, the Moscow vote was a world opinion poll. China won.

Ronald Hilton - 7/14/01