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Mascots of the 2022 Winter Games and Winter Paralympics: Justifiable fear of surveillance
Photo: Song Jiaru;
Sipa Asia / dpa
As a teenager I was unresponsive for weeks when the Olympics were on.
I followed every single competition with childlike enthusiasm.
That's long gone.
When the Winter Games start in Beijing on February 4, I won't feel any more euphoria.
Not because I lost interest in sports.
But because nothing is right with this mendacious event.
Whenever Olympics have been given to dictatorships, nothing good ever came of it. It is a betrayal of sport and of the Olympic ideal. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which is said to be committed to international understanding and peace, awards the Games to a regime that can use them to market itself, while in Tibet and Xinjiang it keeps sections of the population like prisoners.
Olympic officials justify themselves, among other things, by pointing out that the athletes could use the games to point out grievances on site.
It would be nice.
These athletes depend on their regimen-controlled daily PCR tests coming back negative to start and pursue their profession.
It has never been easier to get critics out of business than with a manipulated test.
Athletes and coaches have been briefed on the situation in China over the past few weeks, including by a representative from the German Foreign Office.
According to the Süddeutsche Zeitung, he warned them that the Chinese government wanted to make its mark with games that were as perfect as possible, and public criticism was "not welcome" by the authorities.
The British and Dutch, meanwhile, have advised their athletes to leave their personal cellphones at home and use disposable phones instead.
Because of the justified fear of surveillance.
"Under the given conditions, it is hardly responsible if we are simply sent over there," complained Wolfgang Maier, sports director at the German Ski Association of the "South Germans" weeks ago.
"I wouldn't dare to make a statement over there," said luger Tobias Arlt when he returned from the World Cup in China in November.
Previously, after a false positive test, he had to spend days in the quarantine room, which was also inhabited by cockroaches.
The problem is not athletes who remain silent under such conditions in order not to jeopardize the practice of their profession.
The problem is an association that exposes athletes to such conditions.
And therefore, dear IOC: Don't award the Olympic Games to such regimes anymore.
Or get rid of it!