In gratitude to the true Olympians and their torch

All praise to the 'flame managers' of Beijing.

These boys in pale-blue may be 'thugs', according to Britain's Olympics boss, Lord Coe.

Dammit, they push around our celebrities and policemen and don't even 'speak English.

But they do, at least, show the Olympics for what it is rather than what its western supporters want it to be.

Citius, Altius, Fortius? That is the Latin piety used since 1924.

'Violenter, adroganter, belliger', would always have been a more accurate motto.

The ancient Olympics were born to express political bitterness with minimum bloodshed - and they were reborn in the respectful spirit of that antiquity.

Violently, arrogantly, belligerently.

The guards of the Olympic flame are Olympians to the core.

They represent the movement's true coming of age.

When the Olympics stops standing for mindless fanaticism, we might as well not have it.

It's hardly the fault of the Chinese.

Often accused of inscrutability, they show, in fact, things exactly as they are.

What you see is what you get.

Lord Coe and his friends would rather see something else, something 'swifter, higher and braver'.

But that's hardly the flame-managers' fault.

It is reported that the boys in light blue may soon be sent home in disgrace - having fallen foul of the business sponsors who finance  the IOC in its blind excess.

That would be most unfair.

Then whoever said sport was fair.

Comments

[Candadai Tirumalai]

Pindar: the ancient Olympics immortalized in poetry.