Behind the scenes with the torch - Part 2
Peter Ueberroth, the chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, framed the central issue squarely Tuesday evening at a reception thrown for the torchbearers at the Asian Art Museum near San Francisco’s City Hall even as he proclaimed, “Tomorrow, you’re having a chance to watch history.”
He said, “There were some problems in London, some problems in Paris. Here’s the question: can San Francisco give the gift to the world, to teach the world, that you can have all proper dissent, every idea expressed, freedom of speech to the nth degree – and do it with dignity, and allow the Olympic torch to pass here, and do so proudly?”
Ueberroth’s comments came after San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom had confided he’d arrived late to the reception because the relay’s logistical details were still, Tuesday evening, being subjected to “last-minute tweaks."
What about participation by the torchbearers in the day’s opening and closing ceremonies? Unclear.
This was in keeping with what staffers had told the torchbearers earlier.
How would family and friends know when and where to watch someone run? In prior relays, torchbearers knew such details. Here, all we were told was what number we would be in the sequence.
I had been assigned 39 of 80. Midway. Probably down by Fisherman’s Wharf and Pier 39, if the original route map – published in the San Francisco Chronicle – would ultimately prove to have any relevance.
Other torchbearers seen at the party: NBA commissioner David Stern, U.S. women’s volleyball coach Jenny Lang Ping and, naturally, former San Francisco mayor and California powerbroker Willie Brown.
The current mayor, meanwhile, said he had “great confidence and great expectations that the … best of San Francisco [would] be on display,” adding later that, “As mayor, I could not be more proud of the Olympic torch.”
He also said the “magic of our city” is the “recognition we are all in this together,” going on to say, “That’s the spirit that brought the torch to our great city … that’s the spirit that will not be dimmed.”
Jiang Xiaoyu, a senior executive with the Beijing 2008 organizing committee who has been a familiar face on the Olympic scene for years, said – in remarks translated from the Chinese – that the relay would “spread peace and friendship” between the “Chinese and American people.”
He declared, even as a handful of protestors unfurled a “Free Tibet” banner outside, across Larkin Street, “We are on a journey of harmony.”
The mayor noted, before leaving the lectern, “Everyone has the right to disagree with everything I’ve just said,” noting wryly, “That right will be exercised tomorrow.”
“We ask them,” the mayor said, referring to activists and protestors, “to be civil and respectful.”
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About this blog
NBC Sports contributor Alan Abrahamson brings a wealth of knowledge to his coverage of the Olympics and the sports world.
Old always sucks and new always rules, right? So the new america we see today is clearly better than the Old America of the 1980's and 1990's.
"Here’s the question: can San Francisco give the gift to the world, to teach the world, that you can have all proper dissent, every idea expressed, freedom of speech to the Nth degree – and do it with dignity, and allow the Olympic torch to pass here, and do so proudly?"
Here's the answer: obviously yes, where N=0, dignity means diversion, and pride means punked.
Today, as if Iraq were not enough, I am again humiliated to be an American. As 1980 Olympian Kimberly Carlyle put it earlier: why? there was no violence, no fear, even a small solitary woman like myself felt no threat whatsoever.
Yet, the American public was duped, betrayed, and UTTERLY SILENCED in the name of Olympic oppression, U.S. style. It's as if the U.S. was showing China who the greatest oppressor in the world REALLY is.
As local NBC 11 just put it, the event was "Successful and Nonviolent" ... which apparently is always preferable to such antiquated quaint values such as free, brave, inclusive, open, liberated, much less truthful or noble ... in the new small-a america.
NBC 11 also reported, "The well choreographed fake-out" was due to the number of people who turned out.
PEACEFUL people who turned out; exercising their divine right as articulated by the old school capital-A American liturgy.
Like we always say, "out with the OLD, in with the new," right? Because *New* and *More* is always better than old, proud, patriotic, or principled, right? Right.
My police scanner picked up all information on the route before it took place. Funny that no one thought of this method of discovery.
Our mayor is pathetic. We're letting a communist one party state with a history of human rights violations and environmental violations use the city for a PR stunt.
Toss in the fact that the FBI has recently arrested 4 individuals in the US for trying to send sub and space shuttle technology to China, and you have to wonder why we're helping a country that's positioning itself as a global rival.
Just moronic.
I'm an American born Chinese and I find the shipping in of "supporters" by China just a parallel to Mugabe "shipping" in his supporters in Zimbabwe. The US isn't lily white in our human rights record but we're not a tenth as bad as China.
shipping in of "supporters" by China?!
You of all with democratic values can not tolerate the protest that is being dishing back to you?
If I still live there I will be there showing my support for the torch too.
I can live with it. I didn't say that we would shoot them like your soldiers in Tiananmen Square.
See you can express your opinion here, you can't in China. See the logic?
Bay Area, your probably a supporter of Jiang Jieshi are you not? I can tell...