Kill the IOC

Unless you’ve been under a rock for the past year, you probably know the Olympic games are currently being held in China.

China is known for lots of things – most of them not exactly gold medal performers.

Made in China products are usually cheap, dangerous and often produced by people so poor, they can’t feed their themselves, let alone their families.

The Chinese government has a long list of human rights violations, from as far back as the 1950’s – probably even longer, but they are so good at covering up their tracks, we can only trace these to that era.

And in keeping with the Olympic spirit, China has put thousands of poor workers out of work, as they have closed factories all over the city, in a vane attempt to clean the air. It’s been so smoggy over their, some athletes have pulled themselves out of their events, for fear of injury!

There are so many places, good, decent and clean places on this planet, why on earth did the International Olympic Committee (IOC) choose one of the worst?

The IOC has long been accused of playing politics with sport. There was that whole incident at the last games, where several members of the IOC stepped down in disgrace, after being caught taking bribes.

Looks like the IOC is still in the habit of taking some kick back or another, because the only thing this year’s games really have managed to do, is stir up controversy.

Which is really too bad, because the original point of having an international sporting event of the best of the best was just that – for the sport of it all, as a competition. The Olympics should be about athletic victories, and the stories of desire, drive and determination of hard working people, doing what they love to be the best.

Instead, the Olympics is always about anything, but the sport. This year, if there isn’t some story about some country pulling their athletes out of the games, or some protest at the games or abroad, it’s about some stupid American athlete protesting fur.

That’s right – fur. While millions of people starve in China, and millions more are beaten to death by the government, one of the American athletes held a press conference, where she showed off a poster of her in the nude, declaring fur evil.

If anything should be declared evil, it is the IOC.

Athletes from around the world dream of one day, competing with others from around the world in their sport. They all want the gold, but even just getting to the Olympics is a sign of prestige and glory.

But the IOC has tainted those dreams, by selling out. Instead of creating an event which really is all about athletes achieving their dreams, the members of the IOC have created an event to simply pad their already hefty wallets.

Sure, it costs millions of dollars for any country to host the Olympic games. And there are some benefits, jobs are created, tourism brings in money, and you get to be on the international stage.

But do you really want to share that stage, with people that are so dishonest and deceptive, they don’t care about the athletic dreams they are crushing?

Placing the Olympics in China was a bad idea. But having the IOC still calling the shots as to where to place the games is an even worse idea.

It is time the IOC be disbanded, and the Olympics be put into the hands of people that actually care about the games, instead of their own butts.