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Why must everything be America's fault? An article published at the UK Times Online, brought on a firestorm of commentary from readers. In the literally hundreds of comments, many were in agreement that if there is any question of the girl’s age, an investigation is warranted. There were also those who thought that even if she were underage, she should still be allowed to keep her medals. Yet in addition to the comments arguing whether age should matter or not, there were a fair number of those that suggested the only reason this investigation has commenced is that the U.S....

BEIJING (AP)—The United States said Sunday it was disappointed the Olympics had not brought more “openness and tolerance” in China and pressed for the immediate release of eight American protesters as the games ended.

Yet as I sat here watching the glorious fanfare that descended upon the Bird’s Nest in Beijing tonight, I could not help but be bothered by a few nagging questions which neither the humorous sight of Jackie Chan singing at the top of his lungs or the sound of a hundred fireworks could quell. These Olympic Games were truly remarkable; few can deny that. But now what? What happens after the last foreign Olympic athlete has boarded an airplane back to his home country?...

am not going to allow myself to wonder why the IOC (International Olympic Committee) waited until three days before the end of the Olympics to fully address the Chinese gymnastic age scandal. I am not going to even dwell on the fact that the ID’s and birth certificates that China provided to the IOC last night could easily have been modified or reissued. I am just happy to see that the IOC took action...

Everyone is playing sleuth over whether China cheated in women's gymnastics. The hope is that the officials who govern Olympic competition will conduct a straightforward investigation, but regrettably, such a thing seems to be beyond their scope and spine at this point. Who are you going to believe, the Chinese government, or the Chinese government? The authorities at the Beijing Games have considered the question, and for the moment have decided to believe the Chinese government. A stack of available documentation shows that China apparently altered the ages of some of its female gymnasts, who won six medals here, including...

<p>BEIJING (AP) - Despite persistent questions about the ages of several members of the Chinese women's gymnastics team that won the gold medal, the International Olympic Committee said Friday there is still no proof anyone cheated.</p> <p>The IOC asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate "what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies," spokeswoman Giselle Davies said.</p>

With the parents growing indignant and the Beijing Games winding down, the International Olympic Committee wants to “put to rest” persistent questions about the age of China’s gold medal women’s gymnastics team. The IOC said Friday there is still no proof anyone cheated, though it asked the International Gymnastics Federation to investigate “what have been a number of questions and apparent discrepancies,” spokeswoman Giselle Davies said. However, all the information the Chinese gymnastics federation presented supports its insistence that its athletes were old enough to compete.

Excerpt - BEIJING (Reuters) - The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into allegations Chinese authorities covered up the age of a double gold medal winning gymnast because she was too young to compete. ~ snip ~

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into the age of Chinese gymnast He Kexin, The Times of London reports. Faced with almost insurmountable evidence which suggests that He is two years younger than the birth date listed on her Chinese passport, the IOC has launched an inquiry that could result in the stripping of He's gold medals. This news comes on the heels of another Times report that details the findings of a New York computer security expert who found official Chinese documents that list He's age as 14 years and 220 days. Mike Walker used a Chinese...

International Olympic Committee launches probe into He Kexin's age Tim Reid in Washington, Jeremy Griffin and Jane Macartney in Beijing The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete. An IOC official told The Times that because of "discrepancies" that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped...

The International Olympic Committee has ordered an investigation into mounting allegations that Chinese authorities covered up the true age of their gold-medal winning gymnastics star because she was too young to compete. An IOC official told The Times that because of "discrepancies" that have come to light about the age of He Kexin, the host nation’s darling who won gold in both team and individual events, an official inquiry has been launched that could result in the gymnast being stripped of her medals. The investigation was triggered as a US computer expert claimed today to have uncovered Chinese government documents...

On Thursday, well into the second week of the 2008 Olympic Games, Rogge must have decided that it was time to do some "tough talking." He must have thought that it was about time to show the world that the IOC did have some 'backbone' after all. Unfortunately, by the time he was finished with the interview, he had proven to the world once again that the IOC is as weak and tactless as ever. Instead of addressing issues such as the China gymnastics age scandal or the fact that Beijing has not even approved one protest request, he inexplicably...

IOC breaks ranks with hosts over protests By Roger Blitz Published: August 19 2008 20:42 | Last updated: August 19 2008 20:42 Olympic officials have for the first time openly criticised their Beijing hosts for China’s intolerance of public protests, questioning their desire to allow citizens the right to raise grievances during the games. The International Olympic Committee is also understood to believe that lower-than-expected attendances at games venues is the result of Beijing’s poor distribution of tickets for the general public, including a failure to reallocate unwanted tickets.

I have an 8-year-old daughter. I know what 8-year-old hands and feet and hips and teeth look like. They look a lot like the hands and feet and hips and teeth of the purported "teenagers" on the gold medal-winning Chinese girls' gymnastics team. The two pounds of frosty blue eye shadow and Bubblicious pink blush that the ChiComs piled on the cherubic faces of their gymnasts backfired. Rather than masking their youth, the pedo-friendly makeup made them look even younger, like 5-year-olds dressed up for a Beijing Halloween Gone Wild. One of the Chinese team members has an unexplained missing...

Olympic repression and a gutless IOC Published: August 14 2008 19:30 | Last updated: August 14 2008 19:30 It has taken less than a week for the contradictions between the reality of Communist party rule and China’s pre-Olympics promises of openness and press freedom to burst unpleasantly into the open. Perhaps the party’s decision to order a pretty nine-year-old girl to lip-synch the patriotic singing of another girl deemed insufficiently cute for the opening ceremony can be dismissed as a misguided quest for artistic perfection. Nor is the manhandling of journalists by police – as happened on Wednesday during a...

The Communist regime has spent billions on lavish sports venues, the world's biggest airport terminal, and a huge security operation. All this while sweatshop conditions are widespread and millions are still homeless after May's deadly earthquake in the region. Of course, the official line is the country’s 1.3 billion people are delighted that the Games have arrived.  And the groundswell of pride and nationalist fervour in China is obvious. But privately there is anger from some that the leadership continues to declare that running a successful Games is its "number one priority". Speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of...

Chinese Olympic organizers acknowledged Tuesday they were struggling to handle an unforeseen and baffling problem inside Summer Games venues and at the showpiece Olympic Park. Two weeks after announcing they had sold every one of the record 6.8 million tickets offered for the Games, Olympics officials expressed dismay at the large numbers of empty seats at nearly every event and the lack of pedestrian traffic throughout the park, the 2,800-acre centerpiece of the competition. (snip) To remedy the problem, officials are busing in teams of state-trained "cheer squads" identifiable by their bright yellow T-shirts to help fill the empty seats...

Iran could face action over no-show at swimming Aug 10, 2008 BEIJING (AFP) - Iran could face action from the IOC if it deliberately pulled out of the Olympic men's 100m breaststroke heats because an Israeli was also racing, Olympic officials said Sunday. Iranian swimmer Mohammad Alirezaei's lane one was empty when the field left the starting blocks on Saturday as Israel's Tom Beeri, starting in lane seven, finished fourth. International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Giselle Davies said she was unaware of the facts, but reiterated IOC policy. "I wouldn't specifically comment on this incident," she said. "Under the spirit of...

The drug chief of the International Olympic Committee accused Russia of systematically doping its athletes on Tuesday, the same day that three of the country's race walkers, two of them Olympians, were nabbed for steroid use and less than a week after seven prominent female were caught in an elaborate doping and test-rigging scheme. In an interview with AFP, Arne Ljungqvist, who is also a vice-president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), expressed his disappointment and disbelief at what has transpired with the Russian team.

IOC president: "Historic" Beijing Games to advance Olympic goals www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-04 23:01:55 BEIJING, Aug. 4 (Xinhua) -- The Beijing Games will be a "historic" one and will significantly advance the Olympic goals of universality and fair play, International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Jacques Rogge said here on Monday. "We are now just days away from what I believe will be a historic Olympic Games," Rogge said at the opening ceremony of the 120th IOC session, held in the National Center for the Performing Arts in central Beijing. The Beijing Games are already a "landmark event for the Olympic Movement," he...

While I wish I could feel sorry for Gosper, there is just one problem. Every time he opens his mouth, he seems to be defending or at least speaking for the Chinese government. Yesterday, for example, in response to criticism about the Internet censorship he said "that we are not working in a democratic society, we’re working in a communist society." He continued by stating that "this is China, and they are proud to be a communist society." Really? Did the IOC not know that China was a proud "communist society" when it bestowed the Olympics upon Beijing eight years...

If it was not already, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is now officially an accomplice to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and all of the Chinese government’s attempts to censor free speech and block personal freedoms in China. According to a report from Reuter’s on Wednesday, “some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday.” Cut a deal? There was no deal. The IOC ‘rolled over and played dead’ just like it has been doing since it bestowed the Olympics upon Beijing 8...

BEIJING: The Chinese government confirmed Wednesday what journalists arriving at the lavishly outfitted media center here had suspected: Contrary to previous assurances by Olympic and government officials, the Internet would be censored during the upcoming games. Since the Olympic Village press center opened Friday, reporters have been unable to access scores of Web pages - politically sensitive ones that discuss Tibetan succession, Taiwanese independence, the violent crackdown of the protests in Tiananmen Square and the sites of Amnesty International, Radio Free Asia and several Hong Kong newspapers known for their freewheeling political discourse. On Wednesday - two weeks after its...

BEIJING (AFP) - The Beijing Olympics were plunged into another controversy on Wednesday as China announced a backflip on Internet freedoms for the thousands of foreign reporters covering the Games. China's decision to reverse a pledge on allowing unfettered web access proved an embarrassment for the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which had repeatedly said foreign press would not face any Internet curbs in Beijing. It was also the latest in a long line of issues to have tarnished the run-up to the Olympics, which start on August 8, following controversies over pollution, human rights and terrorism threats. Beijing Olympic organising...

BAGHDAD, July 29 -- Two Iraqi athletes will be allowed to participate in the Beijing Olympics after a last-minute pledge by the Iraqi government Tuesday not to interfere politically in the country's Olympic movement. The agreement reversed a decision last week by the International Olympic Committee to ban Iraq from competing because of allegations that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had compromised the independence of the national Olympic committee. The government dissolved the panel in May and replaced it with a new group headed by a cabinet minister. But after negotiations between Iraqi officials and the international committee at its headquarters...

Some International Olympic Committee officials cut a deal to let China block sensitive websites despite promises of unrestricted access, a senior IOC official admitted on Wednesday... China had committed to providing media with the same freedom to report on the Games as they enjoyed at previous Olympics, but journalists have this week complained of finding access to sites deemed sensitive to its communist leadership blocked. "I regret that it now appears BOCOG has announced that there will be limitations on Web site access during Games time," IOC press chief Kevan Gosper said, referring to Beijing's Olympic organizers. "I also now...

ATHLETES from Iraq have been banned from taking part in this summer's Beijing Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has announced. The team was already the subject of an interim ban after the Iraqi Government replaced the country's Olympic committee with its own appointees. Under the IOC charter, all committees must be free of political influence. As a result, the team of two rowers, two sprinters, one archer, one weightlifter and one judo competitor cannot attend the Games. "We sent a letter to the Iraqi Government today saying that as the situation stands, today it is unlikely to have Iraqi...

Iraq banned from Beijing Olympics Seven Iraqi athletes from five different sports qualified for the Olympics Athletes from Iraq have been banned from taking part at this summer's Beijing Games, the International Olympic Committee has announced...

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The International Olympic Committee has banned Iraq from competing in the upcoming Summer Olympics games because of what it says is political interference by the government in sports. An Iraqi Olympic Committee official said the IOC sent letters in Arabic and English confirming the ban. The official said the seven Iraqi athletes who were to travel to China for the games in August are disappointed by the decision

OLYMPICS PART THREE: CHINA–LET THE GAMES BEGIN, BUT WHY THERE? Published July 24th, 2008 If all the hype about the meaning and reasoning behind the Olympics ever meant anything, (See Part One), why, just a few generations after the inception of the modern Olympiad, was Hitler’s Germany awarded the 1936 Games? Why were the 1980 Olympics held in the U.S.S.R., a nation which had an obscene record of terror, international intrigue, militarism, and repression in Eastern Europe, and which had invaded Afghanistan less than a year earlier. And why in the name of God were this summer’s Olympics bestowed upon...

Chicago 2016 and U.S. Olympic Committee officials have one more reason to root for Barack Obama's election as president. The IOC apparently doesn't much care for McCain. Nearly all IOC remembers bitterly recall that McCain chaired Senate Commerce Committee hearings on the IOC's operations in the aftermath of the bid-city bribery scandal that erupted at the end of 1998.

BEIJING - Construction will halt, heavy industries will close, and even spray painting will stop in order to clean Beijing's polluted air for the Olympics — an issue that suddenly has taken a back seat to political protests. An aggressive plan to temporarily shutter belching steel and chemical plants, cut back emissions by 30 percent at 19 heavy-polluting companies and stop excavation and pouring of concrete at hundreds of sites around the city was explained Monday by the city's Environmental Protection Bureau. "From the suggestions of experts we think that we need to take these measures to guarantee the air...

BEIJING - The International Olympic Committee will not intervene to pressure China on Tibet or other political issues in the countdown to the Beijing Games. IOC president Jacques Rogge reiterated that stance Friday, saying it was not up to the Olympic body to get involved in the host country's political affairs. "This is the line we do not have to cross," he said at the close of a two-day IOC executive board meeting in the Chinese capital. China's recent crackdown in Tibet has fueled protests that have disrupted the global torch relay for the Beijing Games. Rogge has expressed hope...

Athletes who display Tibetan flags at Olympic venues — including in their own rooms — could be expelled from this summer’s Games in Beijing under anti-propaganda rules. Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said that competitors were free to express their political views but faced sanctions if they indulged in propaganda. He accompanied those comments with an admission that the Games were in “crisis” after pro-Tibet protests engulfed the Olympic torch relay. Mr Rogge’s call for Beijing to abide by its promise to address human rights was given short shrift by Beijing, which bluntly told him...

BEIJING - Crisis. Disarray. Sadness. Four months before the opening of what was supposed to be the grandest Olympics in history, the head of the International Olympic Committee is using words that convey anything but a sense of joyous enthusiasm. The protest-marred Olympic torch relay and international criticism of China's policies on Tibet, Darfur and human rights have turned the Beijing Games into one of the most politically charged in recent history and presented the IOC with one of its toughest tests since the boycott era of the 1970s and '80s. "It is a crisis, there is no doubt about...

BEIJING (AFP) - China bluntly told the world Olympics chief Thursday to keep out of politics, in a tart exchange on human rights following days of protests that have shadowed the Olympic torch around the world. International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said the Games were in "crisis" following the demonstrations, and urged China to respect its pledge to improve its rights record before the event begins in August. China fired back that Rogge should keep politics out of the Olympics, which Beijing hoped would showcase its much-touted "peaceful rise" to power -- but which have instead become a public...

April 8, 2008 IOC may scrap Olympic torch relay over protests Jenny Booth, and Chris Ayres in Los Angeles The International Olympic Committee may scrap the international leg of the Beijing Olympic torch relay as a result of the protests over China’s military crackdown in Tibet. Jacques Rogge, the IOC President, says the organisation’s executive board will meet on Friday to debate whether to allow the torch to continue its 85,000-mile, 21-country journey. Mr Rogge said this morning that he was “deeply saddened" by the violent protests in London and Paris, and concerned about tomorrow's torch relay in San Francisco....

The Internet must be open during the Beijing Olympics. That was the message a top-ranking International Olympic Committee official delivered Tuesday to Beijing organizers during the first of three days of meetings — the last official sessions between IOC inspectors and the Chinese hosts before the games begin in just over four months.

In 1936, The International Olympic Committee(IOC) put on one of the saddest propaganda displays in human history. They did this on behalf of a crazy despot who would go on to execute millions of people for not measuring up to the standards of an Aryan Superman master race. The 1936 Summer Olympics in Munich, Germany, served as a great coming out party for international fascism. It was a form of warfare before the first shots of WW II were ever fired. With Leni Riefenstahl panning the camera, the propaganda film Olympia hit the screens in 1938 to spread the false...

Beijing events could be postponed in case of heavy pollution: IOC Monday • March 17, 2008 The International Olympic Committee said Monday that it would set up a special panel to recommend the postponement of events at the Beijing Olympics in case of heavy pollution. IOC Medical Commission chairman, Arne Ljungqvist, announcing the IOC's own analysis of air quality data for Beijing, said that the body would be formed with representatives from his commission and from sports federations. "We have to have a mechanism in place to provide the coordination commission with the facts," he said, referring to the IOC...

BEIJING (AP) -- Beijing's air quality is better than expected, though a study shows athletes in outdoor endurance events will face some risks from pollution and the weather may be less than ideal at this summer's Olympics. ...snip... an analysis by four independent experts of data supplied by Beijing organizers found heat and humidity might be a greater threat to athletes than the city's noxious air. ...snip... "It means we may not see much of world records under unfavorable conditions, but that's not the main purpose of the Olympic Games -- to set records."

BERLIN (AFP) - International Olympic Committee vice-president Thomas Bach said a number of top athletes were considering boycotting the games in China over the bloody crackdown on protesters in Tibet. Bach told Bild am Sonntag newspaper he understood the athletes' concerns about the situation in Tibet but said he was advising them to participate. "They will realise when they assess the situation that it is better to make an appearance than to stay away. That is a symbol that will be noticed by the public," he said. Asked if human rights had been a concern when Beijing was selected to...

BASSETERRE, St. Kitts - International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge poured cold water Saturday on calls for a boycott of the Summer Games in Beijing over China's crackdown in Tibet, saying it would only hurt athletes. "We believe that the boycott doesn't solve anything," Rogge told reporters on this Caribbean island. "On the contrary, it is penalizing innocent athletes and it is stopping the organization from something that definitely is worthwhile organizing." Demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet on Friday — the most violent riots there in nearly two decades — left at least 30 protesters dead, according to a...

The International Olympic Committee has deigned to allow athletes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics to blog. However, the IOC wants to make sure that athletes know the rules beforehand. They cannot post pictures, audio, or video of the events because the IOC does not recognize blogs as a form of journalism: The IOC has set out guidelines for blogging at the Beijing Games to ensure copyright agreements are not infringed. They include bans on posting any audio or visual material of action from the games themselves. ... "The IOC considers blogging... as a legitimate form of personal expression and not...

Rights group lashes IOC chief over China controls Fri Nov 30, 1:11 AM ET The International Olympics Committee has failed to ensure that China honors promised media freedoms ahead of Beijing's 2008 Olympic Games, a press rights group has claimed. In an open letter to IOC President Jacques Rogge, Paris-based Reporters Without Borders recounted cases of foreign reporters briefly detained and roughed up while investigating village protests and other sensitive topics. China has vowed to set aside long-standing restrictions on foreign reporters before and during the Games, allowing them to roam the country without the usual need for official approval...

BEIJING (AP) - The Olympic Games are a year away, but protests have already begun from groups who want the event to change China. Also clouding the picture Tuesday was a thick blanket of smog that has hovered over the city for weeks—not the blue skies hoped for by the organizers of the Beijing Games. Officials including International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge will mark the start of the one-year countdown with a lavish ceremony Wednesday in Tiananmen Square. But on Tuesday, Chinese authorities detained six activists descending part of the Great Wall with a 450-square-foot banner reading, "One World,...

Synchronised swimming not for gays The governing body for aquatic sports and their World Masters Championships insist that synchronised swimming is for females 09-August-2006 Tony Grew A gay synchronised swimming team has been banned from performing at an international meet, as the International Olympic Committee continues to insist that the sport is for females only. The ten men and four women squad from the San Francisco Tsunami Swim Club had been invited to perform a routine at the FINA Masters in Stamford, California this week. Local organisers knew that the male team would not be able to compete organised a...

A men's synchronized swim team has been barred from a meet at Stanford University, reinforcing an International Olympics Committee decision designating the sport as women-only. The San Francisco Tsunami Swim Club's team was set to perform an exhibition at the Federation Internationale de Natation World Masters Championships. But the international governing body that oversees the meet scuttled the plans. The synchro team has competed at national competitions, the Gay Games and the International Gay and Lesbian Aquatics Championships. San Francisco Tsunami describes itself on its Web site as a gay and lesbian aquatics team that is open to all.

STOCKHOLM, March 2 (Reuters) - Sweden could lose their Olympic gold from Turin after breaking IOC sponsorship rules during their homecoming celebration three days ago, the Swedish Olympic Committee (SOK) said on Wednesday. The Swedish hockey federation showcased their own sponsors rather than those of the Swedish Olympic Committee (SOK) during Monday's celebrations at Medborgarplatsen in south Stockholm. IOC rules state that only Olympic sponsors are allowed during the Olympic season, which officially ended on Wednesday, despite the last sporting events taking place on February 26. "SOK will do everything so that Tre Kronor (the Sweden team) don't run the...

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