KEY POINTS:
We've all heard the cries to keep politics out of sport but it was always inevitable there would be calls for a boycott of Beijing.
The brutal oppression of the Tibetan people, slave-like conditions for workers in Chinese factories and ingrained abuses of basic human rights give plenty
of justification.
Why should the Chinese regime be left to bask unchallenged in the warm glow of the Olympic spotlight?
Since the early antecedents of the modern Olympic, politics and sport have been inextricably entwined.
The earliest events between the city states of Greece involved protests, boycotts and walkouts and every modern Olympics has had political issues to confront. Beijing is no different.
New Zealand itself has been at the sharp end of this debate on several notable occasions.
The feature event of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montreal should have been the 1500m race between Tanzanian Filbert Bayi and New Zealand's John Walker.
Walker was the latest of our middle-distance running sensations after the likes of Jack Lovelock, Murray Halberg and Peter Snell. He was at the height of his career and New Zealand's brightest hope for a gold medal.
Bayi was the rising star of African running. He too came from a long tradition of fine East African athletes. Both men had impressive performances leading up to the games.
It was time for the showdown.
It never took place. Walker won gold on his own because Tanzania, along with 28 other African and Caribbean countries, joined a boycott of the games in protest against the 1976 All Black tour to South Africa.
Playing rugby with apartheid at a time when black schoolchildren were being shot dead in the streets in their hundreds deeply angered Africa. African countries tried to get New Zealand excluded from the Games and when this failed they led a walkout.
Perhaps the most interesting political development from a modern Olympics was a "People's Olympics" planned for Spain in 1936 to celebrate freedom rather than support the Nazi showcase which was the Berlin Olympics. But politics intervened when Franco's fascists waged civil war against the popularly elected Spanish government.
Many of the athletes joined the international brigade on the spot to fight the spread of fascism.
Here in New Zealand our Olympic committee made the stupid decision to require New Zealand athletes to sign an agreement they would "not make statements or demonstrations (whether verbally, in writing or by any act or omission) regarding political, religious or racial matters".
Like the rugby union when it refused to select Maori players for its teams to tour South Africa the governing body was expecting our athletes to give up in other countries the political freedoms they enjoy in New Zealand. If this wasn't bringing the worst of politics into sport then what was?
It was refreshing to see the committee backdown after pressure to explain why New Zealanders should be denied their freedom of speech because the host country stifles it.
Instead of a political sleepwalk through Beijing wouldn't we all be proud to see New Zealand athletes speak out boldly against the repressive Chinese regime?
We should expect nothing less.
* John Minto was a leader of Halt All Racist Tours in 1981
