Monday, October 18, 2021
Beijing’s torch starts in Athens
Thomas Bach’s perfect glow is disturbed
With the ignition in Athens, IOC President Thomas Bach sends the Olympic flame on its way to Beijing. The protests against the games in China make it to Greece. The ceremony is accompanied by a clearly worded banner.
Thomas Bach enjoyed the seemingly perfect show in ancient Olympia and relentlessly spread his message of solidarity and equality. Even the unpredictability of the weather was not a factor in the lighting of the Olympic flame on Monday: With blue skies and 20 degrees, it took only seconds for the fire to blaze with the help of a parabolic mirror and for the torch to be sent on its 109-day journey to Beijing. So much for the beautiful pictures from the cradle of the games, produced by the IOC.
The sky over the International Olympic Committee and the highly controversial host China is by no means cloudless. A photographer from the French news agency AFP recorded how protesters displayed, among other things, a Tibetan flag and a banner reading “No Genocide Games” on the sidelines of the show. Law enforcement officers hastily suppressed the protest.
Already on Sunday activists had hoisted the Tibetan flag and Hong Kong’s revolutionary flag on the Acropolis, and arrests were made. Two episodes that are just a foretaste: Pro-Tibet activists as well as representatives of the Uighur community of China and human rights experts announced that they would hold a press conference in an Athens hotel on Tuesday. They want to denounce “the serious failure of the International Olympic Committee” in awarding the Winter Games to China.
IOC rejects responsibility
China has long been criticized for its blatant human rights misconduct. Tibet’s role was already a stir when Beijing first hosted the Summer Games in 2008. Added to this are the conflict with Hong Kong and, last but not least, the oppression and imprisonment of mostly Muslim minorities in the north-western region of Xinjiang.
And the IOC? As always, invokes his neutrality. “The Olympic Games cannot tackle all challenges,” said Bach in his speech. The neutrality of the Order of the Ring alone guarantees “that the Olympic Games can stand above political differences.” That is why the Olympic Games are “the only event that brings the whole world together in peaceful competition.”
Bach’s deputy and close confidante John Coates had ruled out any political influence on China last week when he said the IOC was “unable to go into a country and tell it what to do. That is not our job. ” Instead, Bach builds bridges to China. About three and a half months before the opening, he thanked the organizers profusely for the “excellent preparation”. You can be “sure that our partners and friends will offer outstanding winter games”.
Bach still has to work to convince the active and responsible people. “I have another highlight this winter,” said Severin Freund recently and said of the Ski Flying World Championships in Vikersund: “To be honest: Ski flying in Norway does something different to me than the Olympics in China.”
German ski team is “forcibly evacuated”
Others, including the German bobsleigh drivers, have already been to test competitions in the country. While the sites hardly leave anything to be desired, as expected, there are still umpteen question marks when it comes to the process. The guidelines for action for athletes, officials or media representatives, the so-called playbooks, for example, should not appear in the first version until later in October. Although they are based on experience from the first Corona games in Tokyo last summer, even Bach admitted that Beijing will be “different”.
Another issue is organization. The German alpine skiing boss Wolfgang Maier reported on accommodation that had already been booked and paid for, but which the team had canceled. “We were forcibly evacuated because the outer quarters have now been taken back by the state,” said Maier. His verdict: “I’ve been there since 1992, but I’ve never seen anything like it.”
At least with the torch, there shouldn’t be any complications. On Tuesday it will be handed over to the Beijing Organizing Committee, on Wednesday it will land in China and will probably no longer be a big issue – in contrast to the human rights situation in the country.