Word: relay
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...While the unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang and protests during the Olympic torch relay in Europe and the U.S. have pushed Beijing's air pollution out of the headlines, it still remains as a potential source of embarrassment for the host nation. Ethiopian runner Haile Gebrselassie, who has asthma, cited pollution in his decision not to run in the Beijing marathon, the event in which he holds the world record, although he will compete in other events. Likewise, tennis player Justine Henin, who won gold in Athens, says she may not play in Beijing...
China's response to the mid-March riots in Tibet has galvanized its critics around the world, who intend to use the run-up to the Olympics as a showcase of their own. The Olympic-torch relay has been hounded at practically every step--in London, Paris and San Francisco--by pro-Tibet activists. In the French capital, security officials were obliged to turn off the flame on several occasions to protect it from protesters. Even before it arrived in the U.S. on April 8, activists unfurled FREE TIBET banners from the cables of the Golden Gate Bridge. On April...
...Beijing Olympics has been clouded by one confusing crisis after another. Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee president, said on Thursday that he was "saddened" by the violence that broke out along the torch relay's bumpy road and acknowledged that it had not been "the joyous party that we had wished it to be." Hours later, the Chinese Ministry of Public Security held a press conference to announce that the authorities had nabbed two terrorists groups in Xinjiang that had "attempted to carry out sabotage to undermine the Beijing Olympic Games." Despite Beijing's alarm, however, some...
...tone is also reflected on the Chinese Internet, with students and overseas Chinese encouraged to show support for the Beijing Games during the torch relay. Unlike the period after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, when the patriotism of many Chinese abroad was dampened by a distrust of the Communist Party, the torch protests have inspired cries of unity. "From now on, we will fight for ourselves," one Chinese woman in San Francisco wrote in a Chinese Internet forum. "We know it is our ever-stronger motherland that's frightening the western world. It is our development and confidence that's causing...
After suggestions that the torch relay be cut short were made earlier this week, International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge denied there were any plans to do so. Beijing would be unlikely to agree in any case. But having seen the dissent and protest that's followed the torch's 85,000-mile "Journey of Harmony" to the Chinese capital, the Chinese government has to be wondering what this means for its hopes of a glorious Summer Olympics. With reporting by Lin Yang