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New Zealand to lift gag order on Beijing athletes

New Zealand Olympic officials yesterday agreed to lift a controversial gagging order following political pressure to let athletes comment on conditions in China during the Beijing Games.

The board of the New Zealand Olympic Committee (NZOC) said it would recommend to the Athletes Commission that the clause in the athletes' agreement be amended to make it consistent with the Olympic Charter.

Opposition Green MP Keith Locke welcomed the "U-turn," saying it would give New Zealand athletes the right to speak freely about what they saw in China.

Locke had written to the NZOC last week, asking for the deal to be amended to guarantee athletes the right to free speech during the Games.

New Zealand Sports Minister Clayton Cosgrove said he had also expressed reservations about the clause.

As written, the contract New Zealand Olympic athletes sign says they would: "Not make statements or demonstrations [whether verbally or by any act or omission] regarding political, religious or racial matters as such matters are contrary to the objects and purposes of the NZOC."

The NZOC said the clause had been in place for eight years and was to help athletes focus on their performance.

Locke said there had been a groundswell of New Zealand opinion to "let our athletes speak" and that he wanted another clause amended which he said prohibited athletes from writing blogs.

Meanwhile, organizing committee officials said in Beijing yesterday that Chinese officials would run all the sports at this year's Olympics, even those such as cycling and equestrian events which are relatively unknown there.

"Managers of all 28 Olympic sports will be Chinese," Zhang Jilong, director of the organizing committee's sports department, told journalists.

He said that China had lobbied hard to persuade sports federations and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to accept Chinese officials for all the sports events.

"It was easy for some sports, but we had to expend a lot of energy on some others," he said, describing how China pushed its preferred candidates in lengthy meetings with IOC and international federations.

Beijing has been widely praised for its organization of the Games to be held from Aug. 8 to Aug. 24, but the IOC has been critical on one point -- the organizing committee's overt reluctance to make use of foreign expertise.

Officials admitted that Chinese sports managers were not originally up to Olympic standards in some disciplines but had been put through a tough training regime.

Zhang said 11 of them had spent six months in Athens and worked there as technical officials during the 2004 games.

He said that China had pushed so hard for an all-Chinese team of sports managers -- unlike Sydney in 2000 and Athens in 2004 which welcomed foreign expertise -- because of the beneficial Olympic legacy.

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