China Plays With Fire In Paris And London
FRESHLY thawed from a podium in south-east London, Lord Sebastian Coe condemns the “army” (Mail) of Chinese “thugs” who accompanied the Olympic torch relay through London.
“Horrible,” says Lord Coe, if that’s not overdoing it.
Former Blue Peter presenter Konnie Huq, who carried the torch through London – get an adult to help with the matches, viewers – says she was manhandled by the Chinese “flame attendants”.
Konnie should have released her iron grip and produced another version she’d made earlier. But Konnie is made of stern stuff. Konnie would not let go; or thanks to sticky-back tape, couldn’t let go.
Says she: “The men in blue perplexed everyone. Nobody seemed to know who they were officially or what their title was. They were very robotic, very full on, and I noticed them having skirmishes with our own police and the Olympic authorities before our leg of the relay, which was confusing.
“They were barking orders at me, like ‘Run! Stop!’ and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, who are these people?’ They kept pushing my hand up higher when I was holding the torch, so they were…interesting.”
Now the flame and its keepers are in France, where the Sun watches the Olympic torch go out four times. Eventually is was put on a bus, which is surely a performance enhancer.
And given the locals’ penchant for voiture flambee, not a little dangerous…
Posted: 8th, April 2008 | In: Back pages, Tabloids Comments (7) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink
Comments
April 9th, 2008 at 9:57 am
6
pema
The Chinese govt has an appalling record of human rights, not least against its own people, but that does not mean that the Chinese people are thugs - at least no more than the usual proportion in every ‘civilisation’. It has not been so long since China could not even feed itself and the draconian method of government ( a sort of communism ) will take time to reform.
Unfortunately, the people who make the decision to award the games to China in the first place are not politicians and the games are an easy target for protestors.
April 9th, 2008 at 7:21 am
As the Torch goes around, the flame of human dignity and freedom gets more shame solely due the uncivilized host! who beleives only way to control the wold by killing people, they have no idea about how to control the people from within.
offcourse we will see more and more of this shame on china, we need to know more and world need to make them feel shame of what they are doing and where they stand at this point in civilized world.
World will see the real face of china which is hiden behind!
don’t let those thugs come in your country, for they carry the blood of thousands murdered!
April 8th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
Not exactly a relay, is it? London. Paris. San Fransico. Where next? Biggleswade?
April 8th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
What has Konnie Huq to do with the Olympics?
April 8th, 2008 at 5:55 pm
We’re going to see a lot more of this kind of behavior before this olympic debacle is over.
They’re commies! What did you expect?
April 8th, 2008 at 5:26 pm
Brown made a fool of himself. No change there, then.
I cannot believe those Chinese thugs were allowed to conduct themselves in the manner we saw on the TV news reports. It’s a disgrace to the UK. The police clearly were under political instruction, or else some of those Chinese “bodyguards” would be in the pokey this AM.
April 8th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Down and out in Paris and London?
Shades of 1984