Recently in Olympics Category

The U.S. Olympic Committee’s top leadership, appearing before hundreds of reporters in Chicago at a traditional pre-Games meeting, vowed to send a doping-free team to the Beijing Olympics and, again seeking to downplay American expectations, predicted the Chinese team would be a strong contender to win the medals count.

Senior USOC leaders also expressed support for American athletes to say what they want while in Beijing, within the confines of International Olympic Committee rules that say “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda” is permitted at Olympic sites.

In addition, USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth suggested that, in the developing race for the 2016 Summer Games, Chicago is “certainly not first.” The International Olympic Committee will pick the 2016 site in 2009; Chicago is competing against Rio de Janeiro; Madrid; Tokyo; Prague; Baku, Azerbaijan; and Doha, capital of the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar.

A high-level political campaign could take notes: all of it on message.

The USOC made no headlines. All of it had been said many times before, in many ways. Remarkable, given everything that’s going on in the run-up to the Beijing Games.