Lighting the Passion amidst Political Distraction

He Zhenliang Currently: Honourary President of Chinese Olympic Committee and Advisor to BOCOG Former Vice Chairman of IOC and executive board member.

He might have traded up a tennis racket for a nine iron, but he's still got game, and the passion in him is still very much alive. I don't think passion like that can be extinguished like a torch can from rain.

Politics and sports. It's not unheard of...Efforts for a humistic Olympics have been marred in past games. 1972, Munich, Germany: 8 Palestinian terrorists broke into the Olympic village and killed 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team. Kind of a coincidence that the games ended on September 11. 9/11.

Four years later, the 1976 Games in Montreal Canada was boycotted by the African Nations over the issue of New Zealand's rugby team touring South Africa.

1980 Moscow, Russia: the fewest participation of countries since 1956 thanks to a boycott launched by the United States because of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

1984 Los Angeles Olympc Games, the USSR retaliates by calling on a boycott. Nonetheless, a record 140 countries still participated.

Press fast forward to 1988, Seoul Games: Olympics still used as a platform for politics. North Korea boycotts because they wanted to co-host the games. Even so, this edition of the summer Olympics had the most countries represented.

20 years later, it's 2008. China is to host the largest Olympic Games yet. Months before what will be the most important event for Chinese people worldwide, pockets of unrest start to bubble.
 
The world is watching China. The recent violence in Tibet is no coincidence. Things don't just happen overnight. I don't have all the facts. People can pursue the truth, but those who claim to know it all might very well be looking at just one side of the crystal prism...

Like the sun's rays that concentrated on the parabolic mirror to ignite the Olympic flame, once the light strikes down on a prism from a different angle, diffrent sides are revealed and revisions to the "truth" are made...

Left to Right: Xiao Wei, Xiao Wai, Li Suo Liang, Producer Wang Xin, Ding Xiao Yue, Xiao Ying, Edwin Maher, Yang Fan, Majin, Liu Wei, Guan Yuan, Cao Ri, Tony, Zhao
Long, and Shi Yi.

Actual Olympic Torch to be used in Beijing leg of Olympic Torch relay, August 6th to the 8th. The Torch will first travel 1,528 km in Greece, then to parts of Europe and America including over 100 Chinese cities before it arrives in the capital for the opening ceremony. Both environmentally friendly and recyclable!

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