What Price Olympic Gold?

The nations are riding high on the success of our Beijing cycling team. We've swum against the tide and clinched medals at the Water Cube. The media has captured the public's admiration and adulation. But success comes at a price. Should so much of the public's cash have been channelled into Olympic success and how much more will we have to cough up for London 2012?

In cycling and elsewhere, the cash comes, not from sponsorship, but from Lottery funding. That's our National Lottery cash. It's been directed into the Olympics by the government, to deliberately target the medals table, where we have a chance of striking gold.

Millions of pounds have been spent on equipment, training and facilities. But would there be a better use for the cash? And who authorised this dramatic switch of lottery funding away from grass-roots sports, community and arts projects, to target the big Olympic events in the run up to Beijing? 

Where is the like-for-like business funding, which should be a feature of big sport? 

After Beijing, all eyes will be on London 2012 and we'll have to avoid a let down there. 

So the use of lottery cash will expand even further - and then, the bog standard community playgrounds, swimming pools and sporting facilities will have to play second fiddle to the big prize. And that's already happening.

Some reckon that spending the public's cash on the Olympics is a winner.

But after all the triumph and success of Beijing dies down and London looms - it will be at the cost of the small sporting projects up and down the country. Those, and the arts and very worthy community based social projects will suffer. Maybe that's the price we are prepared to pay for Olympic gold. 

Former conservative prime minister, Sir John Major, told the BBC today he believes "all political parties should back guaranteed long-term National Lottery funding for grass-roots sports, from where the Olympic stars of the future would come."

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Another Chinese Olympic Fakeaway

That little girl who sang at the opening Olympic ceremony was only miming. The real singer was shunned because her face didn't fit. It's another Chinese fakeaway.

First we had to peer through the smog and pollution, to be told by Chinese authorities it wasn't smog - it was "just another misty day" in downtown Beijing. 

Then we were told the fireworks display, beamed around the world for the opening ceremony, was all computer wizardry, "because of poor visibility."

The BBC has kindly reported the whole sorry saga here. 

Apparently the organisers needed a girl who was "flawless" with a good image. "The reason for this is that we must put our country's interest first," said a spokesman.

So, is that giant Chinese basketball player really seven foot tall - or is he on stilts?

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Why Beijing Can Stuff Its Olympics

Peering through the pea-souper for today's opening ceremony at the Bird's Nest stadium, it's hard to see the sport for the politics and the poverty, as the Olympics gets underway in Beijing.

The games of shame, is the biggest act of political propaganda since Hitler highjacked the Olympics in 1936.

Bush is there for today's opening ceremony. Brown is due there and an army of freeloaders, outnumbering Team GB by two-to-one. All sucking up to the Chinese authorities. 

Unlike Bush, Brown sees China as an economic magic bullet. 

Brown needs the huge flood of cheap Chinese imports to artificially keep down the cost of living and create the false feel-good factor which has been the hallmark of his economy, And he needs China's cash to invest in our banks and industry. 

The result is cheap and throw-away products, workers forced to churn them out in appalling conditions, real poverty, massive industrial pollution and the decimation of the UK manufacturing industry.

China is happy to oblige and demolish people's homes while the country disappears in a thick blanket of industrial pollution.

Big profits and global corporate sponsorship are at the heart of the Olympics - all orchestrated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

Sally Jenkins in the Washington Post is in no doubt what this Olympics is really all about: 

"It's about 12 major corporations and their panting ambitions to tap into China's 1.3 billion consumers. The International Olympic Committee is nothing more than a puppet for its corporate partners, without whom there would be no Games. These major sponsors pay the IOC's bills for staging the Olympics to the tune of $7 billion per cycle"

The robotic display at the opening ceremony ignores the thousands driven out of their homes to make way for the Olympic spectacle and a state police keeping the population under the oppressive rule of the regime.

The appalling human rights record and oppression in Tibet, is highlighted only by a few brave protesters.

The Beijing Olympics costs China an estimated £33 billion to stage. A small price for the authorities to pay for propaganda, to mark the emergence of China as a world player. 

In four years time, it's set to happen all over again, in London. But the UK cannot afford such extravagance and enormous security costs. London 2012, is set to become a crippling, financial disaster. Lessons should be learnt from Beijing - but probably will be ignored. 

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IOC Toady Ignores Beijing Pea-Souper

Beijing's air quality poses "no risk to athletes' health", according to Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). But he would say that wouldn't he?

Rogge said there was "absolutely no danger" to the health of athletes taking part in events that last less than one hour. Not much comfort for marathon runners and cyclists there, then.

The IOC is just a puppet for its corporate 'partners', without whom there would be no Games. There's a lot of money riding on this. These major sponsors pay the IOC's bills for staging the Olympics. 

Tell all that to ITN's, Mark Austin, who's been wandering round smoggy Beijing for the last couple of days, with a neat little air pollution monitor. And his readings show pollution is four times the WHO recommended levels. 

Rogge urged reporters to distinguish between fog and pollution (as if they didn't know). 

The Chinese authorities have a cute Orwellian way of masking the pollution - it's not pollution they say, it's just a misty, foggy day! 

London used to have one of those, before strict air pollution controls. It was called a pea-souper and it killed thousands.

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Heavy-Handed China Hits Tibet Protest

Heavy-handed oppression by the Chinese authorities was thrust into the spotlight again today, with two Britons held in Beijing, in a banner protest over Tibet. The group, Students for a Free Tibet, said four activists from the UK and the US were arrested after unfurling banners close to the Olympic stadium.

The protest happened before the Olympic torch's arrival in Tiananmen Square as part of a day of protests by the pro-Tibet activists in Beijing.

The Chinese authority's propaganda machine is going into overdrive for the opening of the political Olympics on Friday.

Politicians and freeloaders sucking up to Beijing would do well to remember the horrific images of Buddhist monks beaten up in Tibet, monasteries mysteriously cleared of their occupants and the way Chinese track-suit thugs threw a ring of steel around the Olympic Torch relay around the world. 

Welcome to Beijing 2008, the home of appalling human rights, oppression in Tibet and Tiawan and a people under the thumb and too scared to speak out.

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Wall-To-Wall Olympics Pandas To China

Welcome to Beijing 2008. Home to big profits, corporate sponsorship and state propaganda. That in a country with an appalling human rights record, ravaged by pollution, its people under the thumb and too scared to speak out.

Spies everywhere, internet access blocked, Thousands have been forced out of their homes for the carnival. But the media doesn't give a toss.

The TV teams and anchors are now in place for the most highly politicised Olympics since Hitler and his henchmen tried to use the 1936 Berlin Olympics for their own propaganda.

Last night, Huw Edwards for the BBC, Mark Austin for ITV and Alex Thompson for Channel 4 News blocked out the bulletins with wall-to-wall Olympic coverage. All trying to see through the smog for stories that will capture some interest back home.

Brown will be there for the opening ceremony on Friday. So will Bush, the first US president ever to go abroad to the Olympics. Both reinforcing the oppressive rule of China's communist regime. Thousands of hangers-on will be there for the freebie.

After the TV pictures of the nice opening ceremony and fireworks display, seen through the pollution, what are you left with?

According to an estimate by the Beijing Olympic Game Organising Group, the total cost of the Games is around £33 billion. Five times the cost of the 2004 Athens Olympics and enough cash to feed the whole population of China for a couple of months. So much for communism.

Political leaders, Olympic committees and athletes, try to play down the politics and play up the sport. But the Olympics is politics, and none more so than in China right now.

The political Olympics does sometimes backfire.

Hitler had his Aryan superiority propaganda thrown back in his face by US black athlete Jesse Owens, who won four gold medals in the Berlin Olympics.

In Mexico City, in 1968, two African-American medal winners raised their fists in a black power salute.

Instead of sucking up to the Chinese authorities, our politicians, athletes and the vast media army should have the guts to show up the Chinese regime and its blatant propaganda for what it really is.

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