MB Civic

IOC rejects Tibet’s Beijing Games participation

By Karolos Grohmann

LAUSANNE, Switzerland, Dec 10, 2007
(Reuters) – The International Olympic
Committee on Monday rejected a Tibetan
request to field a team for next year’s
Beijing Olympics, as some 100 Tibetans and
supporters demonstrated outside the IOC
headquarters.

“The IOC is not in a position to accept our
application,” Wangpo Tethong, chairman of
the unofficial Tibetan National Olympic
Committee, told reporters after a brief
meeting with IOC administrators.

“Of course we are disappointed that our
athletes will not participate,” he said.

Tibet has been ruled by China with an iron
fist since 1950 when Communist troops
invaded.

Tethong said they were told in the meeting
with IOC administrators that Olympic
committees from regions that were not
recognised as sovereign states could not
take part in the Games.

In a demonstration outside the building
some 100 demonstrators, athletes of Team
Tibet and supporters, unfurled a large red
banner painted as a wall and called on the
IOC to “break its wall of silence”.

Leading IOC members were inside for a
three-day executive board meeting.

Demonstrators braved pouring rain,
shouting slogans including “Free Tibet”
and “Justice for Tibet” as a delegation of
three, including Tethong and two athletes,
were briefly allowed to meet IOC officials
for the first time since applying in August
to join.

The IOC has been under mounting
pressure as criticism over China’s human
rights record grows some nine months
before the Games.

The Tibetan team currently comprises
some 30 athletes, all exiled.

“I know none of them will win a gold
medal, that’s for sure, but they meet the
standard of the Olympics,” Tethong said.

He accused Beijing Games organisers of
pressuring the IOC to avoid any discussion
on their demand.

Tethong said he would now seek to
 “enlarge our base of supporters”.

“We all agree that rules are made by man
and so can be changed. Maybe see you
again in the London Olympics in 2012,” he
said. (Writing by Karolos Grohmann;
editing by Miles Evans)