Re: The London 2012 Olympics Discussion
I've been looking forward to the Olympics ever since that Maths lesson in July 2005 when I, along with other students, managed to persuade our teacher to find out who had won the rights to host the Games. The reaction from us was, frankly, amazing. And then it was subdued the following day with the terrorist attacks on London. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing - I doubt very much that this country will see the Olympics again in my lifetime, although my dad's parents were alive when the Olympics last visited in 1948.
I'll be following the events as closely as possible. Heck, I'm even attending the men's football matches at Wembley on July 29th, and I get to see Team GB! I've been looking forward to this for ages. My first international match, at the Olympics, at Wembley, seeing Team GB play (they're on in the second match, although that's another story). It doesn't get much better than that.
On a serious note, I am aware that former Olympic hosts have come under fire at times for various reasons. My knowledge of history isn't exactly the best, so correct me if I'm wrong. The Games were awarded to Berlin in 1936, and as Meat Pie has rightly pointed out, that is seen as very controversial. Berlin were given the rights to host the Games in 1931 - two years before Hitler came to power. Spain and the USSR chose not to participate, and some athletes did not take part either. Another point to note regarding the Berlin games of 1936 is that racist policies were considered more acceptable then than they are now - for example, the USA still had segregation policies in place, and the Montgomery Bus Boycott didn't happen until 1955.
Next is Moscow 1980. Moscow was boycotted by numerous countries following the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan, although I have my suspicions that Communism in the USSR played its part to an extent. This was responded to in Los Angeles 1984 with the Soviet-led boycott of 16 to 18 countries (sources differ).
Seoul 1988 is a rather interesting one, as North Korea allegedly demanded that half the sports took place there rather than in South Korea. This was unsurprisingly refused, with five countries - including North Korea - boycotting, and two - Albania and the Seychelles - not participating, but not calling their non-participation a 'boycott' in order to avoid sanctions from the IOC (although to me, they pretty much did boycott the Games).
And then we come to Beijing 2008. I wasn't too happy when the Games were awarded to Beijing in 2001, mainly as I wanted Istanbul to get them (at the time, I had family living in Istanbul, although they have since returned to the UK). As I grew older, I became more aware of China's poor record on human rights, and felt that because of this, China did not deserve the Games. In fairness, they did put on a very good Games, but their record on human rights was - and still is - a huge problem for me.
Despite all that, I'm looking forward to London 2012. Roll on the 27th of July!
