When a relay is a forced march

Alfred Biddlecomb
Published: April 23, 2008

A strange thing happened last week. I went to a fight and an Olympic torch relay broke out

This has happened quite a few times as the Olympic flame continued to make its way from Mount Olympus to Beijing, China.

Not content with simply conducting a relay from Athens to Beijing, the Chinese decided to carry the flame across every continent in an attempt to draw attention to the country’s arrival as a world power.
What the torch has also done, however, is shine a light on China’s sins of the past … and present.

As the torch entered Europe last month, people saw it less as a symbol of peace and more as a symbol of China’s atrocious human rights record.

The torch relay across Europe coincided with a violent crackdown by China in Tibet. This reenergized the “Free Tibet” movement in the west and made life difficult for the keepers of the flame.

On the Paris leg of the relay, the French disrupted the relay with violent protests that extinguished the flame on several occasions. There was more of the same in London as the world watched this
tradition quickly degenerate into an international spectacle.

All this leads me to ask: Has the Olympic torch relay outlived its purpose?

My first recollection of the Olympic torch relay was the one leading up to the 1980 Lake Placid winter games. It was a low key event that went through Virginia (up the I-95 corridor) on a cold, rainy day.

The 1984 Los Angeles torch relay was very impressive, but it probably contributed to the dilemma China faces today. The 1984 relay went from coast to coast through most major U.S. cities on its way to
the LA Coliseum. The torch was cheered everywhere it went. I remember watching the daughter of Jessie Owens carry the torch into the coliseum before finally handing it off to Rafer Johnson (the
legendary decathlete who also wrestled the gun away from Robert F. Kennedy’s assassin in 1968).

Since the 1984 games, the host cities have been in a game of one-upsmanship. An archer lit the cauldron with a flaming arrow in Barcelona, Spain in 1992 and a ski jumper delivered the flame in
Lillehammer, Norway two years later.

Today, anything short of hiring Santa Claus to fly the torch over the North Pole would be considered anti-climactic.

Perhaps it’s the orchestration of this event that’s making it irrelevant. A simple relay has morphed into an over-produced infomercial for the host nation. We shouldn’t be surprised by this since the very
first torch relay was conducted by Germany in 1936 with the enthusiastic support of Joseph Goebbels.

Somewhere between Paris and London, the Olympic torch relay went from being a celebration to a forced march. The U.S. leg was a complete debacle. Protesters looking to outdo their European
comrades, scaled the Golden Gate Bridge and erected a “Free Tibet” banner a day before the Olympic flame arrived.

This caused San Francisco organizers to reroute the procession along a top secret route that avoided all the protesters and members of the general public.

Then I saw a news clip of the torch relay going through Argentina. The Chinese paramilitary guards protecting the flame were running at a brisk pace bumping bystanders from the flame’s path like a body
guard clearing the way for Britney Spears to get into Burger King. You read that right — ”paramilitary” guards.

Indonesia conducted its relay inside a heavily guarded stadium during an invitation-only affair. Australia’s prime minister promised to come down on violent protesters “like a ton of bricks” if the torch is disturbed during its visit.

All this, and the opening ceremonies are still more than three months away.

The Olympics are supposed to be devoid of politics. That’s a great ideal, but it’s rarely the case.

There’s always politics involved on certain levels.

It’s the undertone of politics that creeps into the Olympics every four years that has brought us to this point. The Beijing torch relay has been an embarrassment. Unfortunately, it won’t be the last.

Alfred Biddlecomb is the former opinion editor for the Potomac News & Manassas Journal Messenger.