Word: sport
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...weeks preceding the Games, authorities have closed clubs and bars, blocked concerts and other public gatherings and put an increasing number of armed police on the streets. Some of my neighbors have even been recruited as volunteer public-security monitors. They sport red-and-white polo shirts bearing the logo of a Beijing beer company and sit by the street, watching for trouble...
...some after the May 12 Sichuan earthquake, when patriotic ardor was directed at helping the millions left homeless. But demonstrations during the Games could reignite it, says Victor Cha, director of Asian Studies at Georgetown University and author of the forthcoming book Beyond the Final Score: The Politics of Sport in Asia. "Protests by foreigners would infuriate the Chinese and only fuel their reactive nationalist view that the West is trying to ruin China's moment in the sun," he says...
...Thursday, the International Olympic Committee informed Jassim Mohammed Jaafar, the Iraqi minister of sport and youth, in a letter, that it would uphold an earlier ban on the Iraqi Olympic team after the government unilaterally replaced the members of its national Olympic panel - the Iraqi affiliate of the international committee - two months ago. The move was taken by the IOC as corrupt conduct and it cited "political interference" as its reason for the ban. "We deeply regret this outcome which severely harms the Iraqi Olympic and Sports Movement and the Iraqi athletes but which is unfortunately imposed by the circumstances...
...trains. But having dodged bullets, curfews, and sectarian threats through five years of war, Hussein was not going to be stopped by training disadvantages and a lack of funding. She saw an overarching hope for helping to heal some of Iraq's bitter sectarian divides with this Olympics. "Sports can unify the Iraqi people - no Sunnis, no Shi'ites, just sport for the country," she says. But after learning the IOC's decision, Hussein was devastated. "With this horrible situation, who is to say I'll even be alive in 2012," she told CNN through tears, as her coach reminded...
...only ones suffering the consequences of political wrangling, though. The ban amounts to collective punishment for all Iraqis. The IOC's protestations that it had no choice but to impose its rules are plainly disingenuous. For one thing, Iraq is hardly the only country where politicians meddle with sport. The Games are, after all, being held in China! For another, if the IOC was perfectly happy to let Iraq participate in previous Games when Uday was running Iraq sports. Perhaps locking a football player in an iron maiden doesn't qualify under the IOC's definition of "political interference...