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COMMENTARY: Politics and logistics concerns for Beijing Olympics

When Beijing was awarded the 2008 Summer Games, it hailed the news as a chance to hold an apolitical Olympics while showing the world a modern China.

What it got was Joey Cheek standing at its doorstep backed by 47,000 people.

Exactly one year from tonight, the Olympic cauldron will be lit during the Opening Ceremony in Beijing. Already, Cheek, a retired speed skater, is lighting a fire under the Chinese, imploring them to use their clout with business partner Sudan to prevent further massacre in Darfur.

China, which has preferred a methodical approach toward Darfur, already has plenty on its plate for the next 365 days, not the least of which are concerns over what will be on everyone's plates when a hungry Olympic family convenes at the dinner table during the Games.

Certainly, these Olympics will be like no other, from the global positioning satellites being implemented to ensure food safety to the missiles being readied to blast away any clouds that dare dampen the Opening Ceremony (don't be puzzled; explanations on both are coming shortly).

On the field, China's dream of winning the medals race for the first time could become a reality, with American officials saying Team USA is a big underdog.

Off the field, it's a different story. China, seemingly bracing for a possible storm over its human-rights record, adopted the slogan "One World, One Dream" for these Games.

That dream never included Cheek buzzing the doorbell at the Chinese Embassy in Washington two weeks ago, politicizing these Games.

"My name is Joey Cheek," he told the voice on the other side. "I am on the U.S. Olympic team. And I am here to deliver petitions that we have collected over the last week imploring China to continue to act strongly to protect the civilians in Darfur."

Cheek, holding binders with 47,000 signatures collected by the Save Darfur Coalition, was told he could enter but coalition members could not. So Cheek waited. And waited. During the next half-hour, coalition members said Cheek should leave the binders on the doorstep. But Cheek didn't make Time's Most Influential People list by taking his activist role lightly, so he dug in as if on the starting line for the 500-meter final.

"You kind of realize that these are diplomatic games, right?" Cheek said a few days ago. "So if we make you stand outside, we'll put you in your place."

After 35 minutes, the doors opened, and both sides could declare victory.

"I actually was thinking I'd probably be standing there a lot longer," Cheek said.

Cheek brought in the petitions and proposed leading American and Chinese athletes into the Darfur region of Sudan. Chinese officials seemed open to the idea, Cheek said.

The one thing Cheek will not ask for is a boycott.

"I have a hard time asking anyone else to give up something I could not have done myself," he said.

Besides, he knows better. Cheek donated his $40,000 bonus for his performance in Turin to Right to Play, an organization founded by Norwegian former speed skater Johann Olav Koss benefiting disadvantaged children worldwide.

It not only earned Cheek the honor of carrying the American flag at the Closing Ceremony, it showed him the platform he was afforded.

"Had I boycotted, the local newspaper would have had some headline, 'Local boy forgoes Olympics for cause,' or something like that," Cheek said. "But because I went and I won, then I had the chance to speak on Darfur and raise money for Right to Play. ... All of a sudden, hundreds of millions of people across the country heard my story."

Likewise, before the subject is even seriously broached, the U.S. Olympic Committee is dismissing any hint of a boycott.

USOC Chairman Peter Ueberroth, who oversaw the 1984 Los Angeles Games, said American and Soviet boycotts during the Cold War were "misguided and frankly stupid." Ueberroth also believes the United States owes it to China to show up.

Ueberroth recalls the Soviets presenting him a list of 100 countries that wouldn't come to L.A. in '84.

"China was No. 1 on that list," but when the Chinese showed up, that ensured the Games' success, Ueberroth said.

"I've been working very hard to help China have the Games they deserve because of a little debt of gratitude for 1984," said Ueberroth, who will retire from the Olympics after Beijing.

The Chinese have been working hard, too. Conspicuously absent from this Olympic build-up is the predictable sky-is-falling concerns over the host nation falling hopelessly behind in venue preparation. Several stadiums and arenas are ready today, and others would have been had the International Olympic Committee not told the Chinese to take a breath.

Which does not mean the sky won't be falling. The Chinese are so concerned it might rain on their elaborate Opening Ceremony that meteorologists already are testing rockets designed to shoo away clouds (a method that, if effective, provides infinite possibilities during both hurricane and baseball season in South Florida).

Equally curious to outsiders is the plan to use GPS to ensure food safety in the wake of scandals resulting in the execution of one corrupt official and the deaths of pets who consumed food from China.

Wang Wei, executive vice president of the Beijing organizing committee, told the Associated Press that all food entering the Olympic Village and other facilities will have a "safety logistics code" and vehicles transporting the food will be tracked via GPS. "The whole process will be monitored," he said.

That's not the only thing the Chinese are watching. They're handing out $7 fines for spitting in public. Another nasty custom — cutting in line — is being combated on the 11th of each month, when city employees wave flags to remind the masses it's rude to cut in line.

Honking car horns also are frowned upon, but since many won't be allowed to drive during the Olympics, that should solve itself. The driving ban is part of an effort to curb pollution.

Another welcome mat: "Toilets" will be called just that, rather than "WC," for "water closet," which the Chinese decided sounds as crude as "outhouse."

Details, details.

They appear to be a hallmark of China's countdown. Each bed in Olympic venues is required to be 2.2 meters long, and if those 7-feet-4 aren't enough for, say, 7-6 Chinese basketball player Yao Ming, a special stool will be positioned at the foot of the bed.

When it comes to competitive concerns, the Chinese should sleep well, said Jim Scherr, president of the USOC. He said in the most recent world championships in Olympic sports, China claimed 43 gold medals, compared to just 16 a decade ago. The United States won 36 and Russia 34.

Ueberroth said over the past two decades, the Chinese have invested "an enormous amount of money and training" toward Beijing.

"It's no secret that we're more than an underdog," Scherr said. "They're blowing us out of the water in the gold-medal race."

"Water" is the key word. Although Chinese swimmers won only two gold medals at this year's World Championships, memories of doping scandals involving Chinese swimmers in the 1990s have led to concerns of a reprise.

China scoffs at suggestions that the best Chinese swimmers are being shielded from testing today in order to be unleashed a year from now.

Without elaborating, Ueberroth warns all athletes that "more science and more effective deterrents" in anti-doping are being formulated.

As those efforts proceed, so too does Cheek, hoping to round up athletes worldwide to speak out on Darfur and apply pressure to the Olympics' host, which suddenly will open its doors to thousands of questioning journalists.

"When you settle into Beijing, you settle into China and the world will be able to understand China in a very different way — both positively and in some cases negatively," Ueberroth said. " ... That's part of the bargain if you take on the Games."

Cheek, who testified before Congress in June, sees progress inching forward. He was particularly encouraged last week, when the United Nations not only approved a measure to send peacekeeping forces into Darfur, but China supported the move.

It's what Cheek hoped for when he founded his own humanitarian drive, Where Will We Be?, at wherewillwebe.org.

"We will have a much stronger voice in calling for people to live up to this ideal that we espouse in the Olympics when we talk about brotherhood and we talk about sport transcending national boundaries," Cheek said.

"Otherwise, if you don't live that principle in your life, then you're spouting your words.

"So the project that I've started, Where Will We Be?, is asking the question, by Beijing, we know where all the Olympians will be, we know where all the media will be — but where will the people in Darfur and in Sudan be?"

Hal Habib writes for the Palm Beach Post.