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Juegos Olímpicos: ¿la rifa del tigre?

Cada mañana, junto a millones de usuarios, mis hijos y yo abordamos el transporte público parisiense con incertidumbre. Es raro que transcurra una semana laboral sin que alguna de las líneas de metro, cercanías, autobús o tranvía que tomamos no sufra uno o varios incidentes: desde problemas técnicos hasta interrupciones del servicio causadas por un paquete olvidado, lo que activa un exigente protocolo de seguridad, o por un pasajero indispuesto a causa de la aglomeración en hora punta. La pregunta que muchos nos hacemos es: ¿cómo va a acoger una ciudad incapaz de asegurar adecuadamente el desplazamiento de sus propios habitantes a millones de pasajeros añadidos durante los Juegos Olímpicos que se celebrarán este verano?…  Seguir leyendo »

The Japan delegation attend the athlete village entering ceremony ahead of the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games in Australia. The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images

The breathless mission statement of the Paris 2024 Olympics tells us that, “Sport has the power to change everything, improving education, health, and social inclusion”. Sport’s potency does not, however, seem to stretch to problems of housing and homelessness.

This September, city authorities and police have been busy closing down homeless camps across Paris and moving unhoused people out of the French capital, while the first luxury apartments in the Olympic Village have already gone on sale.

The government housing department says the relocation plan is aimed at decreasing the burden in this urban area and ensuring the homeless have greater support in the provinces.…  Seguir leyendo »

Back in the 1980s, when I first began living in Paris, I once had to clamber onto the tiny exterior staircase that surrounds the Eiffel Tower and is used to paint or repair it.

There, hanging out over the city some thousand feet up, I filmed my on-camera segment for CBS about engineering work on the tower. A nightmare assignment for a journalist with acrophobia.

Still, at that time, nothing could have impelled me to risk a swim in that other iconic Parisian sight — the Seine River — not without a full biohazard suit.

And nothing now could get me into the river that has all the romance of One Thousand and One Nights as it winds its magical eight miles through Paris and off into the countryside.…  Seguir leyendo »

Aquí me tienen, muy a mi pesar, envuelto en la aventura de los Juegos Olímpicos, que el año que viene se celebrarán en París. Soy concejal de la ciudad de Boulogne, colindante con la capital y que comparte con ella tres estadios de gran capacidad. En esta ciudad se celebrarán numerosos acontecimientos. Además, está situada a medio camino entre la Torre Eiffel y el Castillo de Versalles, recorrido de los maratones de 2024. Habrá 4 maratones: masculino, femenino, para discapacitados y, por último, para todos los aficionados. Uno de los tres estadios, normalmente utilizado para el rugby, ha sido alquilado durante toda la duración de los Juegos por la delegación alemana, que tiene previsto celebrar allí todas sus victorias.…  Seguir leyendo »

Las Phryges, las mascotas de los Juegos Olímpicos de París 2024. Europa Press

No sé si ya conocen a las Phryges, las nuevas mascotas de los Juegos Olímpicos de París 2024. Son rojas, femeninas, cachondas y sonrientes. Y tienen forma de clítoris. Hasta ahora, las mascotas olímpicas solían estar inspiradas en animales (perros pastores, osos pandas, monos, erizos…) pero, de pronto, llega Francia y convierte dos preciosos clítoris en su bandera. Y muy pronto, quizás, en un nuevo símbolo de París. De hecho, después de conocer a las Phryges ya hay quien asegura que la torre Eiffel es demasiado fálica para representar a la ciudad del amor. ¿Que cómo ha podido pasar? Muy sencillo: sus creadores querían representar el patriótico gorro frigio de los franceses —y así lo hicieron— solo que, al mismo tiempo, dieron vida a dos clítoris gigantes que ya sonríen gloriosos al mundo entero.…  Seguir leyendo »

A la suite du récent rapport du Haut-Commissariat des Nations unies aux droits de l’homme sur la très préoccupante situation dans la province du Xinjiang (Chine), le CIO vient de rendre public son Cadre stratégique en matière de droits humains, plusieurs mois après des Jeux d’hiver à Pékin et peu de temps avant la Coupe du monde de football au Qatar. Le sujet est d’actualité. Mais qui est concerné? Les pays qui accueillent des événements bien sûr, mais aussi les athlètes qui y participent et tous ceux qui sont impactés par eux, notamment les résidents et les ouvriers qui bâtissent les installations, car la notion de droits humains s’est considérablement élargie tout au long du XXe siècle.…  Seguir leyendo »

Los Juegos de Invierno de 2030 están siendo motivo de desacuerdo entre los gobiernos de Cataluña y Aragón. El presidente de Aragón se ha quejado de discriminación con razones de peso. Yo nací en Barbastro, a pie del Pirineo. Comencé a esquiar a los siete años, en 1970. He esquiado en todas las estaciones del Pirineo aragonés, del Pirineo catalán y del Pirineo andorrano. Vi toda la creación de una industria turística, la aparición de telesillas y hoteles allí donde durante 2.000 años solo había habido vacas y praderas. Vi la evolución del esquí de madera y fijaciones de sirga hasta la aparición del esquí de fibra y las fijaciones automáticas.…  Seguir leyendo »

Pekín acaba de ofrecer al mundo uno de los Juegos más distópicos que se recuerdan. Más allá del espectáculo deportivo, distorsionado por la pandemia y las medidas draconianas acordes con una política férrea de covid cero, apenas se habla del impacto económico inmediato que estos Juegos Olímpicos pueden tener sobre China o, al menos, sobre Pekín. Y con razón, porque el impacto económico solo puede ser negativo: con el mismo gasto relacionado con la organización de unos Juegos Olímpicos, pero sin el beneficio del turismo que inevitablemente se genera ante un evento deportivo de esta naturaleza, dado que China sigue manteniendo sus fronteras prácticamente cerradas para luchar contra la pandemia.…  Seguir leyendo »

La discriminación en el deporte no ha sido una mera anécdota. A pesar de que los valores éticos y humanistas son consustanciales a la práctica deportiva, no han faltado episodios de discriminación hacia jugadores y atletas en estadios y competiciones.

Si bien durante algún tiempo se volvió la mirada hacia otro lado, hoy este tipo de comportamientos se consideran inaceptables. No sólo se debe a una nueva mentalidad de la sociedad. También a que el mundo del deporte se ha ido comprometiendo con el respeto a los derechos humanos.

Las organizaciones deportivas se mostraron inicialmente reacias a admitir la vigencia de los derechos humanos en su ámbito.…  Seguir leyendo »

Why the Beijing Olympics Are So Hard to Watch

Imagine a dystopian Olympics. Maybe it would have athletes skiing on fake snow down parched slopes. Robots mixing cocktails, making dumplings and disinfecting the air. Events staffed by workers not in sportswear but hazmat suits. Instead of a stadium you are eager to get a seat in, a bubble you cannot leave.

They’re being staged in a country whose persecution of the Uyghurs has been called a genocide by the Biden administration, and yet China had a smiling Uyghur athlete light the Olympic torch as Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin looked on, two autocrats seated together in the V.I.P. box.…  Seguir leyendo »

China’s President Xi Jinping waves next to his wife Peng Liyuan at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Beijing on 4 February 2022. Photograph: Evgenia Novozhenina/Reuters

China should not have been given the honour of hosting this year’s Winter Olympics. When Beijing hosted the summer Games in 2008, the prevailing hope was that engagement with China would lead to greater openness. Such views now look naive. Instead, the opposite has happened: while China’s economy has boomed, the last decade has seen a concerted crackdown on human rights, a centralisation of political power and creeping and extensive surveillance, as athletes and officials are now discovering.

This growing authoritarianism has reached new and sinister heights under President Xi Jinping, including the dismantling of Hong Kong’s democracy. Most horrific is the situation in Xinjiang, where there is extensive evidence of mass “re-education” camps, forced labour, forced sterilisation and cultural repression on an industrial scale against the Uyghur people.…  Seguir leyendo »

Illuminated performers line the floor of the National Stadium during the Opening Ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. (David Guttenfelder/AP)

It’s a tale of two Olympics. Remember the 2008 Beijing Games? China was dazzling the world with its economic prowess and technological sophistication, determined to impress with its soft power. Praise filled the headlines in countries such as Australia, Britain and the United States. "A perfect 10 in Beijing tonight,” opined the Sydney Morning Herald of the Opening Ceremonies. London’s Evening Standard described the event as “the beginning of China’s new era of greatness, witnessed — and implicitly approved — by much of the leadership of the planet.” And indeed, there was George W. Bush, the first American president to attend an Olympics in a foreign country, telling the press that the Beijing Games “exceeded my expectations.”…  Seguir leyendo »

The 2022 Olympics Are Already a Win for China

The Beijing Summer Games in 2008 started out with a bang — thousands of fireworks shot from the rim of the Bird’s Nest stadium and exploded against the night sky, briefly turning the structure into a giant replica of the Olympic Torch. The stunning pyrotechnics show capped off an opening ceremony designed not only to wow but also to make a statement: China has arrived.

Dogged by reports about air pollution, protests in Tibet and a devastating earthquake that exposed even deeper fault lines in local governance in the lead-up to the 2008 Games, Beijing’s leaders were determined to shift focus to their accomplishments and improve China’s image.…  Seguir leyendo »

Student activists wear masks with the colors of the pro-independence East Turkistan flag during a rally to protest the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, outside the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, Jan. 14. (AP Photo/Tatan Syuflana, File)

When the Winter Olympics officially begin Friday in Beijing, U.S. diplomats and international fans won’t be the only ones missing from the festivities. Olympic athletes from multiple countries who want to show solidarity with the victims of the Chinese government’s human rights abuses have been quietly preparing to boycott the Opening Ceremonies, according to human rights activists who have been helping to educate and organize them.

For several months, U.S.-based activists have been meeting with Olympic athletes from several Western countries to urge them to speak out on the Chinese government’s mass atrocities and severe repression of Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and other groups inside China.…  Seguir leyendo »

Chamath Palihapitiya, part-owner of the Golden State Warriors basketball team, has been criticized for saying that "nobody cares about what’s happening to the Uyghurs" in China. (Mark Kauzlarich/Bloomberg)

It’s one thing to stay silent about mass atrocities. It’s quite another thing to actively help the oppressors whitewash their crimes. The Winter Olympics beginning next month in China, where the government is committing a genocide against Uyghur Muslims, is turning all of its partners into atrocity deniers before our eyes.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC), which consistently stands with the Chinese government against anyone who speaks up against its human rights violations, insists that the Games are strictly apolitical. But that has never really been the case. Before the 1936 Berlin Games, African American runner Jesse Owens spoke out against the persecution of minorities inside Germany (while he still faced personal racial discrimination at home).…  Seguir leyendo »

Surveillance cameras behind a perimeter fence set up for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing. (Andrea Verdelli/Bloomberg News)

China is requiring anyone attending the Winter Olympics to download an app on their cellphone that will allow the surveillance state to track their movements. Ostensibly to help with coronavirus contact tracing, the software also includes glaring encryption flaws that make it easier for authorities to snoop on athletes in attendance as well as a special file with 2,442 keywords that could trigger the nation’s formidable censorship apparatus.

The Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity outfit at the University of Toronto, flagged these and other features of the Chinese welcome mat in a Tuesday report. Such hidden lists of “illegal words” are common in Chinese apps and a reminder of the hypersensitivity of the Beijing regime to even the slightest criticism.…  Seguir leyendo »

Staff members at a Monday rehearsal for a victory ceremony at the Beijing Medals Plaza of the Winter Olympics. (Ng Han Guan/AP)

In 2019, then-International Ski Federation President Gian Franco Kasper told a German newspaper that the Olympics are “easier in dictatorships”. The honorary International Olympic Committee member was referring to awarding the 2022 Winter Olympics to China. “Dictators can organize events such as this without asking the people’s permission”, Kasper said. He walked back his comments under pressure, but he had already said out loud what many sport federation leaders think in private.

The Beijing Winter Olympics open in a month and the FIFA World Cup kicks off in November in Qatar. With the world’s two biggest sporting events being hosted by major human rights abusers, this year is forcing an overdue reckoning for powerful sports bodies that for years have sidelined their formal commitments to human rights.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Chinese flag flutters near the Olympic rings on the Olympic Tower in Beijing on Nov. 11. (Carlos Garcia Rawlins/Reuters)

China’s Communist leaders, innovative in so many ways, appear to be perfecting a 21st-century approach to genocide.

With the Beijing Olympics less than three months away, will Coca-Cola and other sponsors of the Games celebrate with China while this is taking place? While, a few hours’ flight due west of the stadiums and ice rinks, an entire people is being slowly, deliberately erased?

We have learned to think of genocide as industrial-scale slaughter: gas chambers, killing fields, mass graves. A report published last week by the U.S. Holocaust Museum’s Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, “To Make Us Slowly Disappear,” suggests that China may have found a different way, more insidious if no less monstrous.…  Seguir leyendo »

Why boycotting the Beijing Winter Olympics could backfire

With the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics now over, attention is turning to next year's Winter Olympics in the Chinese capital Beijing.

And with less than six months to go, pressure is mounting on the United States and other democracies to boycott the Games, given the strong evidence of genocide occurring in Xinjiang against the Uyghur population and other serious human rights violations in restive regions such as Tibet.

China has repeatedly denied human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet and has called allegations of genocide "preposterous."

However, a letter signed by more than 180 campaign groups warn that the Games will only embolden China's ruling Communist Party.…  Seguir leyendo »

Una Olimpíada de diferencia entre la India y China

Los Juegos Olímpicos de Tokio han terminado, y en Japón, pueblo y gobierno suspiran aliviados, ahora que el espectáculo pasó sin que hubiera un brote importante de COVID‑19 en la villa olímpica u otros desastres. Aquí en la India, aún duran las celebraciones por la primera medalla de oro que obtiene el país en la competencia masculina de lanzamiento de jabalina (y su mejor cosecha de medallas en cualquier Olimpíada). Pero ¿hay tanto de qué alegrarse?

Hace unos diez años, era común mencionar juntas a la India y China en la misma oración. Se suponía que tras siglos de influencia occidental, eran los nuevos contendientes por el predominio global, la respuesta oriental a generaciones de éxito económico de Occidente.…  Seguir leyendo »