No Irish athlete or official due to attend the Olympic Games in Beijing has expressed concern about travelling to China in the wake of the controversy over Tibet, the president of the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) said today.
Pat Hickey accused politicians of “hypocrisy” over the issue and said sport was being used as “the fall guy” forconcerns about China.
Pat Hickey insisted there would be no boycott
Thousands of protesters gathered in San Francisco yesterday and there were tense confrontations between rival pro-China and pro-Tibet demonstrators just hours before the scheduled start of the Olympic torch relay.
Mr Hickey said the Irish officials and athletes were “not under any pressure in any way whatsoever”.
He said invitations had been sent “months ago” to President Mary McAleese and Taoiseach Bertie Ahern for the August 8th opening ceremony for the Olympic Games in Beijing.
“The Taoiseach didn’t want to come because three weeks after the Games there is a huge trade delegation coming out from Ireland to do business,” Mr Hickey said.
“You see, this is the hypocrisy of the politicians. They’re still wheeling and dealing and trading and they’re putting everything back on to sport as the fall guy to solve this problem.
“But basically it’s up to the politicians to solve the problem because we’re not in a position to instruct sovereign governments on what to do. And not one nation yet has cut off trade links with China because they’re afraid to.”
Mr Hickey said the attitude of the Olympics committee towards politicians coming to the opening ceremony was that “we’re not worried whatsoever whether they show or not, because they are not crucial to the organisation and the running of the games and whether they come for the opening or the closing ceremony, that’s their business”.
“We don’t in fact invite them. They’ve been invited by the Chinese government, so it’s up to them to decide would they be insulting their invitations, or whatever. All we’re concerned about is the athletes, everything is in place for them, and when the whistle goes for them on the first day everything will run smoothly.”
Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Hickey said the Irish team would be at the games and would be "very well looked after" by the Chinese hosts.
Not one member of the team, athletes or officials, has contacted us or expressed any reservations about travelling, in fact they are all looking forward to it - OCI President Pat Hickey
“Not one member of the team, athletes or officials, has contacted us or expressed any reservations about travelling, in fact they are all looking forward to it.”
He said an invitation would be issued to the incoming taoiseach to attend the opening ceremony.
Mr Hickey was speaking from Beijing, where he attended what he described as the last meeting of the 205 participating nations before the games. The meeting was to sort out “matters of a technical nature” and had been “very fruitful”, he said.
“The games will be spectacular and they will be run in a very efficient way by the Chinese, there’s no doubt about that,” Mr Hickey insisted.
On the controversial decision by China to run the torch ceremony
through Tibet and whether it gave the organisers “any pause for thought”, Mr Hickey said the president of the games had answered that question at today’s meeting.
“The president answered it by saying there are ongoing discussions with the Chinese about the torch relay and its final routing and that meetings were happening on a daily basis and that he wouldn’t comment any further than that.”
Asked about the issue in Dublin today, Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny described it as "a real mess".
He said there was clearly a serious issue in Tibet and this needed a "very strong and clear response" in terms of the human rights issue.
But he did not believe an Irish boycott of the games was warranted.
Mr Kenny said he did not like to see sport and politics mixed to a great extent.
But on the athletes' participation in the opening ceremonty, he said it could often be "crucifixion" for a highly trained athlete to go into a stadium and stand for six or seven hours.
“This is actually going to get more difficult before it gets better and there is a very clear response demanded in terms of the human rights issue," Mr Kenny said.