Tag: sport

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China hoist by their own petard

BBC News:

“Thirty-five arrests have been made after clashes between pro-Tibet protesters and police as the Olympic torch made its way through London.

Of course, in the parallel world of the Chinese official news machine, the only thing interfering with the movement of the torch was a sprinkling of snow. Actually, to be fair, there is an article about ‘the attempt by some “pro-Tibet independence” activists to sabotage the torch relay’. It’s not exactly hard hitting journalism, but at least they don’t completely pretend that nothing happened.

It’s not part of the traditions of the Olympics to send the torch all the way around the world on the way to the host country: they did it in 2004 because the games were being held in Greece and the trip from Olympia to Athens was a bit too short. But China had to make it as high-profile as possible, and have, as a result, created a three-month long opportunity for protests and bad publicity. By the time the Games come round, far more people will be able to recognise the Tibetan flag that ever could have before.

Personally, I think the focus being Tibet all the time is slightly missing the point: for me, China’s human rights record as it applies to the other 99.8% of the population is rather more important than Tibet, if only because of sheer numbers. But Tibet is a much simpler, more photogenic issue with a charismatic spokesman, so perhaps it’s not surprising it attracts all the attention.

» Photo credit: olympic torch-19 found on Flickr and © suburbia2050.

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Tibet and the Olympics

It’s going to be really interesting watching the Olympics unfold. There had already been rumblings, with the protests last year in Burma and pressure over Darfur, but protests in Tibet bring it that much closer to home. And as the Olympics get closer, and more and more media attention is focussed on Beijing, the Chinese government are only going to find it harder to control the news agenda. Though I’m sure they’re going to put a great deal of effort into the attempt.

Yingsel

They have a knife-edge path to walk: they have no chance of getting through the games without at least a few difficult moments, but probably it will be no more than that. Western governments are not keen to start a confrontation, and while there will be a lot of media there, most of it will be the well-oiled machinery of bland, upbeat sports coverage, with its emphasis on lap times and human interest stories about plucky Britons just failing to win bronze medals. As long as the games themselves are running smoothly, Steve Cram and Sally Gunnell are not going to be spending much of their time in the BBC studio talking about China’s human rights record.

But with all that attention, there’s always that sneaking background knowledge that, thanks to the oxygen of publicity, if something does spark off, it could be very explosive indeed. I suppose the doomsday scenario would be something like large scale pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square during the games themselves. If I was a Chinese government press officer, I think I’d be quite tense already.

» The defecting Tibetan Antelope mascot is from here.

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A question.

I’ve been wondering: what proportion of Premiership football matches this season have featured the players wearing black armbands?

Santa Cruz

It seems like they never take the field without them. And far as I know Britain isn’t currently experiencing a surge of extra deaths due to, say, an outbreak of the Black Death.

I know, it’s a completely harmless trend, and I’m sure that, whoever is being memorialised, their family and friends appreciate the gesture. So why not? It’s just a slightly odd phenomenon: the more commercialised the sport becomes, the more prone it is to very public displays of sentiment.

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Uncomplicated pleasures

Watching Chelsea get knocked out of the FA Cup by Barnsley, followed by a big plate of ribs, greens and Hoppin’ John.

My version of soul food wouldn’t pass the Southern Grandmother Authenticity Test, btw, but it was pretty tasty though I do say so myself.

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Irony of the week

The Chinese government expressing their sadness and shock at the idea that anyone would be crass enough to sully the Olympic spirit with the grimy taint of a political agenda.

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più alto, più rapido, più forte

Well, today the Capello era really gets started. After two months of blissfully fact-free speculation, conjecture, analysis and day-dreaming, we have to get down to the sordid reality of playing actual football.

rooney

Even after the match, it’ll be too soon to tell much really. Not that that’ll stop the pundits. Obviously they have to offer some kind of opinion—they have airtime or newsprint to fill—but it’s a rare bird indeed who truly manages to bear in mind that, as the health warning on financial advertising puts it, past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results.

It’s not just the professionals, of course; we all do it. If a team is playing brilliantly in November, we confidently predict that they’re going to win the league. Even over the micro-short term: if a match is 3-0 at half time, and one team has been dominant, you can guarantee that the pundits, even the Beeb’s collection of melancholic pessimists, will predict a scoreline of 5, 6, or 7 to nil. This despite the fact that the balance of play almost always swings back and forward during a match, and that if one team has been particularly good it’s much more likely that they’ll go off the boil a bit in the second half.