Déjà vu all over again

In the news this weekend: Canadian government officials call for the 2022 winter Olympics to be removed from China to protest what can fairly be called the genocide of the Uighur people. This comes days after scores of human rights groups called for a boycott of the games. Elsewhere, campaigners are beginning to target Olympic sponsors.

All of this is quite right. It is shocking, disgraceful and a slew of other negative adjectives that China, for the second time in 14 years, is being allowed to throw an international sports party. The games should be held elsewhere. Sponsors should be named and shamed. Good luck with that.

Been there, done that, got the t-shirt.

There’s a lot I could write on the subject. In fact, I already wrote about this almost exactly seven years ago in the run up to the opening of the 2014 winter Olympics in Russia – another appalling (and doubtless corrupt) decision by the International Olympics Committee to reward bad behaviour.

To save myself saying it all again, here’s the link.

I’m not an athlete, never been the least bit sporty, never trained for years to compete internationally, so I suppose this is easy for me to say: Fuck the Olympics.