What Would the Games Be Without Bribery?

Chinese gymnasts may or may not be 16, and therefore of legal age to compete in the Olympics, but who cares, really? An Olympics without child labor really wouldn’t be a fitting tribute to our global village, or to the hardworking toddlers overseas who make my inexpensive shoes so well. (Note: child labor is not funny. Not at all. On the other hand, who’s going to make my shoes for less than eight dollars a shoe? My point exactly.)↵↵Child labor is just one particularly dirty corner of the Olympic marketplace. Another is the outright purchase of international organizations in order to lobby for the inclusion of certain sports into the Olympics. The BBC has some interesting reporting on keirin, a kind of short track cycling that you may or may not know as a recently introduced Olympic sport. You’ve never heard of keirin, you say? Well, neither have we, but the gentlemen of the Union Cycliste International (UCI) have thanks to thousands of dollars bestowed on them by Japanese keirin types who hoped to buy off the UCI in order to get into the Games.↵

↵↵⇥They reveal a series of substantial payments to the UCI, which began just two months after the keirin was accepted into the Olympics in December 1996.↵⇥↵⇥Written on UCI letterhead one of the contracts states that the Japanese agree to support UCI projects in “material terms”, in consideration of “the excellent relationship the UCI has with representatives of the Olympic movement”. ↵⇥

↵↵Meaning: They bought their way into the games, or at least just happened to shower cash on the UCI and suddenly make it into the Games all at once. This all begs two questions. First, is there something about sitting in a bike seat that injures one’s ethical gland? Between this and the doping scandals of the Tour de France over the past four years or so, it’s a legitimate questions. Second, if the Olympics are rife with bribery, what ungodly sums have been paid out for the current games in Beijing? Check the accounts for anything suspicious, like a $17 million dollar office supplies budget, for example.↵