Along the Way: Political football should not be part of Olympics

Boycotting the Olympics in Beijing would accomplish nothing more than annoying China and shattering the dreams of athletes forbidden to compete.

President Bush has been roughed up in the media during this final year of his lame duck administration, but he’s right when he says, “I don’t view the Olympics as a political event. I view it as a sporting event.”

Michelle Mitchell, the most decorated diver in University of Arizona history and silver-medal winner in the 10-meter platform event at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1988 games in Seoul, South Korea, is against using Sport as a political weapon.

“There are better ways to show disgust with the host country,” she said at her office at UA where she serves as the head diving coach. She is in her 12th year with the diving program.

“How about economic sanctions or public relations sanctions — going on a PR campaign to make your point?” she asked.

“Any time you use people as pawns, the ripple effect has no end. I have a lot of friends who made the 1980 U.S. team and almost 30 years later, they’re still bitter.”

After Soviet tanks rolled into Afghanistan in 1979, President Carter called for Team USA to boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow.

“The scars haven’t gone away,” Mitchell said. “And the worst part of it is, nothing was gained.”

Inducted into the UA Athletic Hall of Fame in 1988 and the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1995, Michelle was also an Academic All-American while competing for the Wildcats. As a coach, her divers have won numerous championships and scholastic honors.

Her personal athletic accomplishments at UA take up a lot of space in the school’s media guide.

Michelle was a four-time All-American, 1979-83. She was a nominee for the 1986 Sullivan Award, a nine-time U.S. national champion, 1985 World FINA Cup champion, 1987 Pan American Games champion, four-time U.S. Olympic Committee “Athlete of The Year” nominee and American record holder for platform diving (479.40 points for an eight-dive list).

And she’s right-on when she says the only people who’d be hurt by a boycott would be our own Olympic athletes.

OK, China is run by knuckleheads. The country mistreats its own people and denies such rights as education to children born of North Korean women and Chinese men. The women, according to Human Rights Watch, are being arrested and summarily repatriated to North Korea.

In addition, China claims it owns Tibet, which begs to differ but is helpless against Chinese rule.

Tibetans are treated terribly.

China seems to have a special talent for producing goods guaranteed to be recalled in this country — namely, toxic toys.

As if that weren’t enough, air pollution in Beijing on an average day is about five times above safety standards set by the World Health Organization.

Despite its guarantee of a “green Summer Olympics,” Beijing is mostly brown. The air, that is. The government solution is to shut down 144 gas stations in Beijing during the games.

That’s roughly 10 percent of the stations in the city.

No wonder the free world believes China should be punished for its wrong-doing. We all know the government there has a history of human rights violations 10 times longer than the Great Wall.

The Olympic Games should never have been awarded to China in the first place, but they were — and to prevent our athletes from competing would be wrong.

How about boycotting a few billion dollars in aid and trade with Beijing?

How about bringing home all the American jobs outsourced to China?

Rather than force our best young athletes to give up their hopes and dreams, waste all the time and energy and money they’ve put into training for the Olympics, how about fighting politics with politics?

Corky Simpson’s column appears Fridays in the Green Valley News.