By Evan Weiner

August 8, 2008

(New York, NY) -- The sanitized Olympics start in Beijing today and if you are expecting a John Carlos-Tommie Smith black power salute moment on the podium when the medals are given out, you can forget that. The International Olympic Committee doesn't want athletes to speak out against things like the War in Darfur, China's human rights record, the Iraq War and other realities that would get in the way of the IOC's two week sports fantasy camp and corporate bazaar. Besides athletes are not going to speak out because it might cost them endorsement deals.

For the next two weeks, the IOC, aided and abetted by global TV, broadband and other media and corporate partners, will wave a magic wand and try to convince the world that this is China's coming out party on the world stage and that the Olympics will change life in the world's most populated country in a myriad of ways including the country's culture and politics. It is not going to happen. Neither Taiwan nor Tibet are going away anytime soon and that remains a problem for the leaders of what is still a communist country with a woeful human rights record and is still supportive of regimes in Myanmar and Zimbabwe. The Olympic Torch Relay didn’t go all that well during the spring when protestors disrupted the relay route in Europe and in the United States because of China’s policies.

No matter what the IOC does and that could include expelling athletes displaying Tibetan flags, the political realities are not going to change anytime soon. There isn’t anything true about the Olympic “One World, One Dream” slogan this time around.

China is still going to spy on both allies and enemies and assert its political power on the world stage as it has in the recent past in Darfur. The Olympics pageantry is whitewash, China will not emerge from the Olympics as a kinder and gentler country.

But the fantasy is what the IOC and Olympic corporate partners and the sports media want people to believe as part of the Olympic fairy tale. An Olympic fairy tale that makes no official mention of what happened in Munich in 1972 with the murder of the Israeli athletes in the Olympic Village and how the Games went on or the boycotts of 1976, 1980 and 1984. Nope, all of that is whitewashed as are the years of IOC bribe taking and corruption and the billions of dollars in debt left behind after the Games are done. Montreal, Quebec and Canada finished off paying the bills for the 1976 Montreal Games in 2006. Greece is drowning in Olympic debt from the 2004 Athens Games. Australia is paying for the upkeep of unused venues that were built for the 2000 Sydney Games. Vancouver, which will host the 2010 Games, and London, the 2012 site for the Games, are ready projecting major budget deficits. But that isn't the IOC's problem, that will be the local taxpayers problem to solve. The IOC just brings the show to town and doesn't care who pays for it or how it is paid for. It is not IOC President Jacques Rogge's concern, after all Rogge is more interested in how the United States Congress deals with steroids use in baseball or how the IOC should have policed the Olympic Village in Italy rather than Italian authorities for illegal performance enhancing drugs because that's cheating not lawbreaking.

The IOC thinks it is bigger than any government and the IOC is right. No governments ever stand up to them, instead they get on their collective hands and knees and beg the IOC for the opportunity to spend billions to land a two week sports event that ultimately gets them nothing. Once the Games leave town, there are only trace reminders that an area once hosted an Olympics but the bills still need to be paid.

What China spent on this year's event may never be known and what also may not be ever known is the price tag the world paid for the IOC's sports orgy in terms of how much diesel fuel China had to use to help build the IOC's ultimate sports fantasy camp and how much did that lead to much higher fuel prices globally.

It is far better to talk about how NBCUniversal is taking in more than a billion dollars in advertising money in the United States and will change the way people will watch sports events because of their multi-platform coverage ranging from over-the-air network TV to cable TV to broadband. It is far better to talk about which athlete is going to emerge as the biggest winner, not necessarily in medals, but in getting endorsements. Yes, the Olympic Games are a celebration of sports to a certain extent. A lot of really good amateur athletes need not apply though because the International Olympic Committee wants pros.

There is nothing more absurd than having tennis professionals compete for an Olympic Gold Medal. In a few weeks, the tennis pros who are going for the gold in Beijing will be in New York at the world's "most important" tennis tournament, the US Open. Of course, the pros just a month ago competed in the world's "most important" tennis tournament at Wimbledon and just before that was the world's "most important" tennis tournament, the French Open.

The Games should be Games. There is nothing wrong with the games if they are bona fide competition but the Games are now just a marketing opportunity for the National Basketball Association to further the business of basketball and companies buy the Olympic symbol to plaster onto their products as if it was a seal of approval instead of something bought from a bunch of guys. There seems to be no room anymore for just competition. Michael Phelps will get endorsements if he wins a slew of gold medals in the swimming pool and it seems that is how the sports events are ultimately judged. Not by the results on the field, in the pool, on the high beam or court. How many endorsements you get is now the gold standard and that takes away from those who truly put in the time effort and money to get a chance at competing at the highest level for their country in pursuit of a medal or just making a team.

The Olympics should be just a sports meet but it is anything but that now. There is too much money on the table. As far as the magic wand of the IOC is concerned. It doesn't exist. China's ruling power can go back to their old ways without the international spotlight shining. Taiwan and Tibet will still be there when the Games close, North Korea is still around, the human rights issue isn’t going away. The feel good summer sports party will fade into the Olympic sunset. The Olympics won't change China, China has to change China. In three weeks, it will be back to business as usual.

evanjweiner@yahoo.com