The beatings allegedly given to young Chinese gymnasts are "not so different" to the corporal punishment once used in British public schools, the head of the Olympic movement has said.
Jacques Rogge, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), made the comments to Britain's Sunday Telegraph following claims by former rower Matthew Pinsent about physical abuse at Chinese training camps.
"While it is not for us to condone what might not be acceptable, you also have to look at the cultural factor," Rogge said. "I don't need to remind you of the fact that physical punishment was still in use in English public schools until, I believe, the 1970s."
Pinsent's claims of ill-treatment of children by coaches had to be looked at in a social and cultural context Rogge said.
"Let's not exaggerate. There is no torture. I would say that the things that have been reported by Matthew are not so different to what happened in [English] schools 30 years ago," he added.
"They do not put electrical wires on their bodies. I don't agree with any physical abuse, but let's not blow up this issue. This is not the torture of young children, even if we say excesses have to be stopped," Rogge said.
Pinsent's concerns were aired on BBC television and radio last month after he visited a Beijing gymnasium to watch young athletes training for the 2008 Olympics.
The four-time Olympic gold medalist, a former IOC member, described seeing children being pushed through the pain barrier and said one young boy had clearly been beaten by his coach.
A Zurich city councilor has apologized and reportedly sought police protection against threats after she fired a sport pistol at an auction poster of a 14th-century Madonna and child painting, and posted images of their bullet-ridden faces on social media. Green-Liberal party official Sanija Ameti, 32, put the images on Instagram over the weekend before quickly pulling them down. She later wrote on social media that she had been practicing shots from about 10m and only found the poster as “big enough” for a suitable target. “I apologize to the people who were hurt by my post. I deleted it immediately when I
The governor of Ohio is to send law enforcement and millions of dollars in healthcare resources to the city of Springfield as it faces a surge in temporary Haitian migrants. Ohio Governor Mike DeWine on Tuesday said that he does not oppose the Temporary Protected Status program under which about 15,000 Haitians have arrived in the city of about 59,000 people since 2020, but said the federal government must do more to help affected communities. On Monday, Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost directed his office to research legal avenues — including filing a lawsuit — to stop the federal government from sending
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
RSS