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Coe supports athletes' right to advocate for social or racial justice at Olympics

63 Comments
By STEPHEN WADE

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63 Comments
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That's great, but will this allowance also apply to every single person and cause? How about protests on behalf of the following over the objections of (***)......Palestinians (Israel), Rohingya (Myanmar), Hong Kong (China), unborn (pro choice), etc, etc?

If you give this right to one group you have to allow it to all. But that opens a can of worms which will ruin the Olympics which is a sports event, not a political forum.

Enforce Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter ("no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”)

34 ( +43 / -9 )

Isn’t it easier and healthier when they stream from their countries their political demonstration over the internet and this being projected onto the stadium screen? Whoever is so stupid to show it here instead of sports shouldn’t additionally import these idiots and their viruses. That propaganda has to be sufficient for them to disturb us with.

3 ( +8 / -5 )

Coe didn't even quarantine. The J government just made up the block rule on foreign residents. Coe should be ashamed of handing the Olympics to this country then parading about in Tokyo in front of all the foreign residents here. He's only the athletics president - no need to travel here and stand on the track in the rain.

10/06/20 (ATR) World Athletics President Sebastian Coe will visit Tokyo on Thursday despite the current worldwide pandemic.

Seb Coe will travel to Tokyo despite the pandemic. (ATR)

It was announced on Tuesday that Coe will inspect the track at the Olympic Stadium and meet with Tokyo 2020 President Yoshiro Mori during his trip.

Under current Japanese government guidelines, it appears Coe will be allowed into the country due to “exceptional circumstances”.

19 ( +22 / -3 )

I'd expect no less from Seb Coe. A former outstanding athlete who's been through the athletic trenches with every shade of humanity.....respectfully , thus earning world-wide respect...even in my remote corner of the world.

-15 ( +12 / -27 )

Boycott anything to do with him and the olympics then.

16 ( +29 / -13 )

How did this bloke just get to jet into the country when the rest of us plebs can't come and go freely?

Just another example of two sets of rules, and further evidence that this is a scamdemic.

24 ( +30 / -6 )

Just another example of two sets of rules, and further evidence that this is a scamdemic.

I hope you’re keeping verifiable records on the scam.

Historians of all persuasions will be writing it up someday. It’d be a shame if your beliefs were a footnote.

3 ( +10 / -7 )

Bob FosseToday  05:16 pm JST

Just another example of two sets of rules, and further evidence that this is a scamdemic.

I hope you’re keeping verifiable records on the scam. 

Historians of all persuasions will be writing it up someday. It’d be a shame if your beliefs were a footnote.

Of course. And there'll be quite a few historians who see it for what it increasingly seems to be - a scam.

When you see daily manipulated illness figures, media demonisation of medical professionals who contradict the offical narrative, elites like Coe flying around the world with little or no quarantine while the rest of us can't travel or have to pay exorbitant airfares to get home in an emergency, spurious justifications for extended lockdowns and arrests of protestors based on "cases" rather than the number of ill people, the constant reminders about a "new normal." There's no shortage of evidence to work with.

13 ( +18 / -5 )

Did he have to quarantine? Take a PCR test before departure?

18 ( +19 / -1 )

Coe, to make this happen, we have to start to work for honesty and fair human rights.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

A former outstanding athlete who's been through the athletic trenches with every shade of humanity

Never. I ran at the same time as Coe. In the same track meetings against his club. He was born with a silver spoon. Used his sporting recognition to become a conservative politician. Steve Ovett, Coe's great rival, is the true socialist. Ovett used to run in communist block track vests to identify his anti-capitalist beliefs, and Ovett never used his fame to become a politician. The fact that Coe travels without quarantine or PCR test whilst so many are sick in Europe and the US just about sums up his attitude.

This is Coe's Trump-Mussolini balcony moment..

-1 ( +10 / -11 )

Gut feeling tells me a certain type of South African athletes will not get any notice.

https://www.quora.com/Is-there-racism-against-whites-in-South-Africa?share=1

Even when it's a real problem.

6 ( +14 / -8 )

Good for Lord Coe. It will be empowering to see the likes of Naomi-chan speaking up for minorities, BLM and against racial injustice, just like the three 200 meter sprint medalists in Mexico '68, giving the Black Panther salute on the dais.

Hopefully other athletes with social consciences will make protests against the Communist Chinese government and their policy of genocide, as well as North Korea, Russia and their athletes.

-14 ( +8 / -22 )

Gut feeling tells me a certain type of South African athletes will not get any notice.

Well, let’s give your gut a little time to settle down. Maybe it’s just wind.

-1 ( +9 / -10 )

“speaking in a light drizzle”

Exactly.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

It's disgusting that Coe didn't have to quarantine or take a PCR test while there are people who have missed family funerals and are still seperated from their loved ones. All for a miserable, damp PR event for Nippon Kaigi sports day. He should be ashamed of himself.

@TigersTokyoDome

Ovett was always the hero in our house, too. Nice posts.

14 ( +17 / -3 )

Let them make the Olympics slide into even more tediousness. Like the NBA, they'll silently take the politics out of it when the ratings go right down the toilet.

10 ( +12 / -2 )

The stands in the Olympic arena are ugly. Just as ugly as the idea of hosting any games there within the next half decade.

5 ( +6 / -1 )

So BLM, ok then who else?

Lets do a quick of the top of my head list.

Armenia/Turkey, Muslim/Myanmar, Hindu/Pakistan, Muslim/India, Palestinians/Israel, Sunni/Syria, Shia/Sunni/Shia/Sunni (pick any Muslim country), Ukraine/Russia, Russia/Abkhazia, Vietnam, Philippines, etc.../China, Muslim/China, South and North Korea/Japan, Native people of North and South America, LGBTQ......../and just about most countries they are not getting everything they want, Tutsi/Hutu (and vise versa depending on which country they are representing), Catalonia/Spain, Basque/Spain/France, Walloon/Flemish/Flemish/Walloon,

Do I need to go on? If so we can get into more detail by listing the individual African, Middle East, Asian, South American countries with minorities in conflict with the government.

The problem with the west and especially North America is that the vast majority are clueless of the rest of the world and think things like BLM is a big deal and the rest of the world cares.

It doesn't because for much of the world the problems Blacks, LGBTQ.....etc... Face in North America are tiny compared to the problems they face and these include finding enough food, water, etc...just to live.

7 ( +10 / -3 )

How about advocating the taxpayers rights not to pay for this rediculous event? Just move it back to Greece and leave there.

11 ( +12 / -1 )

Preaching against inequality in Japan?

Slightly ironic...

8 ( +9 / -1 )

Very good point. This is the Olympics, not a american track meet. Unless you are gonna protest every misdeed in every country, don’t bring american dirt into the Olympics. Keep it neutral. Take medals from those that defy the Olympics rule!!

12 ( +12 / -0 )

Let's take a sporting event and make it a political event. Why not, everything is political these days. The world is losing the plot.

11 ( +11 / -0 )

Yay, more SJW nonsense. I have a better idea - if they want to advocate for things, they can quit being athletes and become politicians instead.

7 ( +9 / -2 )

Middle distance former champion runner and all time great Lord Seb Coe is a legend. In his heydays on the track, the ace Briton was a serial winner, who time and again made the podium his own. The multiple gold medal winner rewrote rich chapters of sporting history. There is lot more vintage stuff yet to come from the former irresistible runner. Sebastian Newbold Coe looks set to change the face of sports and games in the near future. He appears to be the right man, at the right place, and at the right time. Wishing the athletes and their fans a jolly good time at the Tokyo Olympics.

-12 ( +0 / -12 )

This would be opening Pandora's Box. Its bad enough when governments make their athletes boycott the Olympics. But once such protest is allowed at the Olympics, it will expand into other protests guaranteed. The Olympics was specifically created to put politics aside.

That said, refusal to participate in a ceremony one finds objectionable is not an assailable action and neither is a display of your refusal if its calm and quiet. Forcing people to sing, stand, or assume a posture for a national anthem is enforced nationalism and so is making them even just stand up for it. Enforcement of nationalism has even less place at the Olympics than taking a knee.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

So can a white supremacist now show the „heil Hitler“ greeting to support his ‚cause‘?

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Just one more reason not to watch it.

For sure.

2 ( +6 / -4 )

Olympics is propoganda. It’s become a dictatorship driven by money.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

As if we’ll see just for example lets say chinese, Iranian, or even japanese athletes criticizing their own governments!

It’ll be the west beating up on itself and everybody beating up on the US. A virtue signaller’s delight.

What a farce.

0 ( +5 / -5 )

Sebastian Newbold Coe looks set to change the face of sports and games in the near future.

I’ll say. It will finish off the Olympics, and after the corrupt cesspool theyve become I welcome it.

1 ( +5 / -4 )

You all forgotten Tommie Smith and Jon Carlos?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

He would be making a real statement if he was pushing to ban China over human rights abuses. Just kick countries like China and Cuba out of the event, period.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Coe ... go back to your hole.

Sport needs neither Politics nor Religion, it exists out of pure Competition between people within a Fair environment. As soon as you Politicise Sport - you then start to complicate matters over fairness and Political bias and essentially degrade the Sporting event. Participants should leave their protests off the field of competition as that should be deemed sacred - and by tainting it, they are ruining Sport for future generations.

2 ( +5 / -3 )

For sure.

Those who claim loudly and repeatedly that they won't watch the Games are in denial.

The moment the opening ceremony starts, they'll be poised over their keyboards ready to pounce, telling us all just how offended/bored/clueless/etc they are.

-4 ( +1 / -5 )

We may not agree with China's behaviors Politically, but making political statements during the Competition events should be banned. I think most, who have read my posts will know I am against the CCP, however, a Sporting event transcends Politics and participants should be protected internationally from persecution over attendendance at such an event. Clearly there is a Modern day twist to this, those commercially making money from such events through advertising, should however consider the Ethics of their doing so, and be held accountable for doing so.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Just one more reason not to watch it.

For sure.

Oh, you'll watch it, whilst munching on the sponsors products. Just like you 'watch' F1 for the triggery bit.

I’ll say. It will finish off the Olympics, and after the corrupt cesspool theyve become I welcome it.

You welcome 'change' in a cesspool? This is news for us all, as you seem to think that no form of change or protest is in anyway acceptable.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

He would be making a real statement if he was pushing to ban China over human rights abuses. Just kick countries like China and Cuba out of the event, period.

I’ve read people who’ve called for many countries to be made pariahs - US and UK ( warmongering, arms sales ), Israel ( land theft ), pretty much every Muslim majority country ( religious intolerance, mistreatment of women, LGBT etc ), Russia ( assorted thuggery ), China ( human rights abuses ), Japan ( mistreatment of animals, refugee policy )...

I wonder who’d be left.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

infact, I'd be happy to engage Seb. on a 1:1 and argue against his wishy washy currently nice views that support the CCP supported BLM movement, (and others) which are aimed at causing disruption within our Societies - just as the Russians did.

Ring fence Sport - make it apolitical by Law, Globally. Protect the participants by Law, Globally.

If a team wishes to unilaterally not attend an event, then that, should be their own choice. Though it they wish to slam the country in question, they should send their best Athletes, and make a resounding point, to the extent that the hosting Nation hasn't qualified for the final event elsewhere...

1 ( +2 / -1 )

the CCP supported BLM movement, (and others) which are aimed at causing disruption within our Societies

Eh? What societies - white societies?

Which makes you more uncomfortable? The deaths of black people, or black people protesting against those deaths?

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

Speaking of social or racial justice at Olympics, anyone dare to announce the greatest achievement of all mankind to lift 1.4 billion people out of poverty ?

0 ( +1 / -1 )

Reading between the lines, I guess he means some empty symbolic gesture toward BLM is okay, possibly even welcome for good PR, but everything else is still strictly off-limits.

I'd love him to repeat the quote after someone has made a comfort women or whaling protest.

1 ( +2 / -1 )

Both NBA and NHL lost 25% of their TV viewers after they took a couple of days off to protest. That is fine for the pro athletes that make millions but most of the athletes that participate in the Olympics barely scrape by and a loss of that magnitude will have sponsors limiting their spending which would really hurt a lot of athletes who cannot get sneaker advertisements.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

It’s sad to see a great athlete tarnishing himself in the muck of neo-Marxism. The more you infuse politics into the Olympics the more you detract from the unifying reason for its existence. Sport becomes warfare/conflict by other means. The modern Left purposefully injects politics into all aspects of life for the same reason all authoritarians do - in order to control others. To dominate others. International athletics has been used to channel the human desire for one tribe to dominate another into an activity not meant to cause human suffering and harm. Ping pong diplomacy for example. If Coe has his wish - that will disappear into tribalism and resentment.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

It’s sad to see a great athlete tarnishing himself in the muck of neo-Marxism.

Coe is an out and out Tory.

That said, even some of the party occasionally go against the grain.

A stopped clock is correct twice a day, etc.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Coe was in charge of World Athletics, and had no clue about the Russian drugs and doping, or claimed not to know anything. With his long time involvement in sports and sports administration, many found that incredible.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Coe is bought and paid for. Thats clear.

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Coe is bought and paid for. Thats clear.

Most Tories are, in some shape or form. By big business, or the lure of populist voters.

So, how has be been bought and paid for in this instance?

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Dear Coe,

If we did like you say, the Olympics would become a completely political venue.

South Korea would run with Anti-Japan fever, bringing up dozens of issues they dream of every single day.

Next time you have a terrible idea, please just do it yourself, instead of pushing your agenda on the whole country. Nothing good will come out of this!

4 ( +5 / -1 )

@ReasonAndWisdom,Dear Coe,

Next time you have a terrible idea, please just do it yourself, instead of pushing your agenda on the whole country. Nothing good will come out of this!

Amen!

1 ( +3 / -2 )

Enforce Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter ("no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”)

I tend to agree, as it means when someone breaks the rules, they have to have a strong reason to do so. I'm thinking of Tommie Smith and Jon Carlos who actually made a demonstration and it had an effect. Showing some token support for something that hardly affects you and when you have little to lose doesn't carry much weight.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Amen!

The Olympics is a global event. So, any protests are more than just the host country.

Also; why bring religion into it? Quit pushing your agenda on the rest of the world. Nothing good will come out of this!

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

The Olympics is not a venue for social or racial justice. It's a venue for amateur sports. If the Olympics is going woke, people will stay away. One only needs to look at the recent NBA finals in the United States. There was a heavy price to pay for the NBA going woke. The Commissioner just announced that next year's NBA will not allow players to express their social and political views on the court. Why? They lost money big time.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

It isn’t racial injustice until it affects me in any way even tangentially! Bruh!

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

Coe like the others who are jumping on the ‘social justice based on racial differences’ bandwagon do not actually help anyone by their virtue signaling. They are doing the opposite. Black Americans do not suffer from bigoted systems put in place in accordance with the US Constitution. Their suffering is largely cultural and brought on by the abandonment of their own families. Black popular culture is brutish and selfish. And it’s spreading throughout society and has become a main feature of American culture as well. I’m not talking about if you listen to Elvis and see him swiveling his hips you are going to hell. I am referring to the degradation of our fellow human beings by appealing to overwhelmingly to vices and not virtues. Then picking a symptom of the disease to demagogue and virtue signal your personal purity.

But it has grown in recent decades beyond black Americans and has become an ailment afflicting other races of people as well. Asians have largely avoided it but plenty of American born Asians are becoming acculturated in this culture of dependency as well. When enough become dependent the system - it begins to fail. That is what America faces today. A systemic crisis of culture- not racism.

3 ( +3 / -0 )

Can we cancel this show please. Japan has suffered enough for this. Outside, the world is more divided than ever, a few slogans won't change the course.

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

I love watching the right get so worked up about this.

I hope all USA athletes where Black Lives Matter jerseys to the olympics.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Maybe theres a hint in this fact as to why in his 47 years of “public service” Biden has done zero , beyond paying lip service, to help black Americans, and actually worked against them.

And back in reality, Biden has 47 years of public service, filled with a lengthy record of supporting minorities. Trump marked black people with a 'C' for 'colored' when they wanted to live in his properties, for which he plead guilty later on. This is president bonespurs, who avoided military service, and has no record of public service, other than dismantling it over the past four years.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

Yep, another reason not to watch the Olympics, whose time has passed anyway. Yawn ~~~

2 ( +2 / -0 )

It's a venue for amateur sports

Olympics haven't been amateur since 1992

One only needs to look at the recent NBA finals in the United States. There was a heavy price to pay for the NBA going woke.

All the US major sports in 2020 are down due to Covid restrictions, including NASCAR and college football

Name one that's not

0 ( +0 / -0 )

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