China Bars Olympic Champion From Attending Beijing Olympics

Speedskating champion and Olympic gold medal winner Joey Cheek has had his Chinese visa revoked at the 11th hour and will not be attending the Beijing Olympics as planned.

Cheek is the co-founder of Team Darfur, a coalition of athletes seeking to call attention to China’s links to the government of Sudan. In a telephone interview with the New York Times, Cheek said he received a phone call soon after 5 p.m. on Tuesday from an official in the Chinese embassy, who told him his visa had been revoked. He had planned to leave for Beijing on Wednesday and said the official did not give a reason for the action.

Barring activists such as Cheek violates Olympic ideals of internationalism and freedom of expression, said Phelim Kine, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. “The Chinese government seems to want to have it both ways,” Kine said in a telephone interview. “It says that it will enable people to protest during the Olympic period, but is bending over backwards to ensure that any individual who might actually want to pursue that right to protest is barred from entry into China.”