Quote:
| Originally Posted by Lazlo
What I'd like to see is some personal bycotts by the athletes.
|
I listened to a discussion along these lines on the radio coming home tonight.
Now my second son is an athlete, admittedly a big fish in the small pond that is Tasmania but he is dedicated nonetheless and has perhaps another 8 years of potential competition at high level in him (he's 17 and has been under 18 State champ in various events, 100M, 200M etc on and off since he was 15).
He trains for 2 nights a week at the gymn and 2 nights and Sundays at the track, he competes on Saturday (during the season), leaving him with Friday night off, but he has early bed that night to be good to compete on Saturday.
This has been his schedule since he was 12 and will probably continue, barring injury, for another 8-10 years. He hasn't done this with the thought of making money or have the girls chase him (although it hasn't hurt him
), he's done it as something he feels he has to do, the old "because it's there" cliche. On the way, he's had various injuries, including two hamstring tears, one of which put him on crutches for a fortnight.
Now while I doubt he'll see Olympic stardom, for those that do, the level of personal sacrifice by the athlete, not to mention the demands on his/her immediate family are huge and usually for a decade or two. Why should they give this up? What will the rest of you on here give up on behalf of Tibet, apart from 2 mins of your employers time to register on a petition? Words are cheap fellers.
And the fact is, apart from the superstars of track & field, the "average" elite athlete who, makes it to the Games doesn't make any personal finacial gain out of it - competing and...God forbid, winning is simply the culmination and just reward for years of dedication & sacrifice.
The athletes didn't ask the IOC to give the Games to a heavy handed repressive State like China (although as Jacques Rogge said, it's hard to ignore 1/5th of all humanity), where there was always the risk that this would happen. Nope, the IOC did it, for their own reasons.
Lets put the boot on the other foot if we are all so keen on this - how about we all give up diving for a year to show our solidarity with Tibet? Any takers? No, I thought not.
Anyway, getting back to the radio programme, the suggestion made by one caller was that WE boycott the Games, by not watching them, none of it and then writing to/emailing/phoning the TV company to tell them we weren't watching and watch their advertising revenues fall.
Now that wouldn't be too hard would it?