Should China have been given them anyway bearing in mind the country's appalling human rights record?
Hasn't the whole thing become just one disgusting junket for the International Olympics Committee with one nation after another falling over itself to offer more and more incentives, bigger and better wining and dining for these pampered officials?
Isn't the whole bidding process just another link in the chain of corruption that sees tax payers money squandered in paying vast fortunes for the privilege of hosting an event which will bring dubious, if any, long term benefits to the hosts..and based on past evidence...possible bankruptcy?
Then, of course, having mentioned corruption, there is the main singular overriding reason. It stinks! Stinks to high heaven of athletes having sullied themselves in secret drug-taking in order to win medals at what should be the honourable pinnacle of sporting prowess. Lying, cheating, hiding what they are doing because the urge to win at all costs transcends any concept of honour and decency.
The latest in the dock is Marian Jones, once considered the greatest female sprinter in the world. Rumours have circulated for years about Jones ' drug taking and all the time this woman denied them emphatically. Even when she was at high school and won her schools athletics prizes she had to be defended in court, successfully, against doping charges.
She had a relationship with Tim Montgomery, with whom she had a child, Montgomery himself a world record holder who was banned for life after admitting to being a drugs cheat. Her coach has admitted administering performance enhancing drugs to all his athletes. So Marian Jones, all her athletics career, lived in a druggie stimulants world. Its only a pity that she wasn't caught early in her career before she disgraced the Sydney Olympics by cheating her way to a record haul of medals...all of which will now undoubtedly be stripped from her.
But that's too late for the athletes who were denied their rightful place on the winners rostrum. Hell they were probably on drugs too so what does it matter? Marion Jones joins a long and hardly distinguished list from all across the world
When doping tests were introduced in 1968, two Olympic athletes were found to have taken illegal substances. By the time we reached Athens 3 years ago it was up to 24. Well that's bad enough, but quite clearly the number discovered is merely the tip of a very large iceberg. The standards of testing have improved but so has the ability of coaches and athletes to hide the use of performance enhancements by a clever and careful timing of exactly when they are administered.
Basically any sense of the Olympic ideal has long flown out of the window. Today it is just a huge money making racket for all concerned and for the athletes who win medals, the consequent fame and the big money contracts make cheating well worth while.
The sport is corrupt. Rotten to the core and as far as I'm concerned the Beijing Olympics can go hang. I'd rather watch paint dry.
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