Beijing boycott not the answer, COC says

TORONTO • A boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympics would not bring home two Canadian men detained in China for more than two years or force a change to China's human rights record but would only punish athletes, the Canadian Olympic Committee said on Thursday.

With the Beijing Winter Games scheduled to start in exactly one year and run from Feb. 4 to 20, the COC put out an op-ed confirming a commitment to take part in the 2022 Games as calls grow to boycott the event or have it moved from China.

“My regular communication with athletes is via athletes commissions and we have had a few conversations on this topic but I must confess they don't last very long,” COC chief executive officer David Shoemaker told Reuters.

“Our Canadian athletes are very much looking forward to the next two Olympic Games in Tokyo and Beijing. “Calls for boycotts aren't new. Having said that, we do have a heightened level of concern.”

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) echoed a similar position on Wednesday saying they oppose boycotts because “they have been shown to negatively impact athletes while not effectively addressing global issues.”

A group of U.S. senators, however, has a very different view, introducing a resolution calling on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to move the Beijing Olympics. That follows a U.S. action to designate that the Chinese government was perpetrating a genocide by repressing Uyghur Muslims in its Xinjiang region.

Canada's participation at the Beijing Games has been further put in the spotlight by China's detention of businessman Michael Spavor and former diplomat Michael Kovrig in what Canada views as retribution for the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou on a U.S. warrant.

A July poll found more than half of Canadians believe Ottawa should take more aggressive action to persuade Beijing to release the two men who face spying charges.

The U.S. led a boycott of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games over the Soviet Union's presence in Afghanistan. Four years later in a tit-for-tat response, the Soviet Union led a boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

David Shoemaker