With Tibet, Politics Returns to Olympic Games

While a wide-spread boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games over host China's reaction to protests in Tibet appears unlikely, this year's Games are already attended with more political controversy than any Games in recent memory. Here is a collection of stories on the issue ...

MinnPost's Jay Weiner, the long-time Olympic writer for the Star-Tribune, takes a close look at the politics surrounding Beijing 2008 in THIS story.

The New York Times, today, published THIS piece which offers a nice overview of the issues surrounding the Tibetan protests and crackdown.

The U.S. Olympic Committee has spoken out against a boycott -- "Other than unnecessarily and unfairly punishing athletes, Olympic boycotts accomplish absolutely nothing," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel told the Los Angeles Times -- as have the European Union, Germany, Australia, and the Dalai Lama himself.

Actor Richard Gere, a Buddhist and the chairman of the International Campaign for Tibet, has called for a boycott, HERE, if China mishandles Tibetan protests.

Finally, there's a CNN piece on the 1980 boycott of the Moscow Games HERE and USA Today's Christine Brennan wrote THIS column for the 25th anniversary of the 1980 boycott.