Beijing Olympics – fending off covid and censure

The ‘genocide’ Olympics as Beijing’s winter feste was dubbed by Joe Biden is kicking off this Friday. There will be fewer governments represented, following a series of diplomatic boycotts because of alleged human rights abuses, especially towards the ethnic Uyhgur population in Xinjiang. But there has been no full boycotts of athletes. Because of covid it will be a televised event, with no tickets sold, seats only given to Communist Party members. Infection numbers are rising even within the covid-bubble. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), is as per usual, distancing sport from politics.

 The opening ceremony on February 4th at 8pm has a damp squib 7th house Moon Neptune, fittingly for a virus-ridden event; with a downbeat exact Sun Saturn in Aquarius. There is a showy, attention-demanding 5th house Pluto Mercury, perhaps a hint that Zhang Yimou, the renowned film maker’s show for the opening will be a hit.  It will also get a degree of luck from Venus Mars trine Uranus sextile Jupiter.

 It is not as fraught a chart as for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics which had an explosive Mars opposition Uranus square Pluto. It followed a catastrophic earthquake in Sichuan in May that killed an estimated 70,000 people, which generated massive international sympathy for China, drowning out support for Tibetans.

  The IOC, 23 June 1894, does look stressed through this event with tr Uranus opposition the natal Uranus; and bitter differences and arguments from tr Pluto opposition the Mercury. They were founded during the super-ambitious but scandal-prone Neptune Pluto conjunction with Jupiter added in, giving them an ability to turn a blind eye to unpleasant realities.  Their Venus in Taurus is conjunct the destructive Fixed star Algol. Their moment of truth may be coming around 2025 when the tr Saturn Neptune in Aries conjunct their Mars and square their Sun.

  The Guardian quotes Archbishop Desmond Tutu: “If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.” And added, “If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.”

12 thoughts on “Beijing Olympics – fending off covid and censure

  1. @Linda, cities/nations have to campaign & show they have the infrastructure as well as the finances to prepare for and host the games.

    @Unmystic Mom is correct. I forget which city, but one of the hosts for one of the future games received the right to host by default. The other cities pulled their names from consideration due to lack of money.

  2. Gnarly Dude – agree with your Saturnine comments! And hope very much we do see huge pushback against all these greedy secretive governing bodies, instead of various “scandals” that seem to be resolved or simply disappear.

    I noticed that FIFA’s Saturn is at 20 Aquarius (21 May 1904); UEFA’s Pluto is 22 Leo (15th June 1954); and the IOC Solar Arc Saturn is 22 Aquarius, with it’s natal Venus 22 Taurus. FIFA also has Mercury 18 Taurus conjunct Venus 17 Taurus, which says quite a lot I think, and on one level just says ‘the beautiful game’. There’s an energetic Mars/Uranus/Nodes conjunction at 18 Taurus at the end of July-beginning of August. Obviously, all these various fixed sign planets are about to receive Saturn and Uranus transits, plus a Saturn return for FIFA. There’s opportunity for change.

    And worth watching, I think, is the Mars/Saturn conjunction at 22 Aquarius in April, plus the Mars at 22 Taurus square Saturn at 22 Aquarius in August. It’s quite wryly amusing to see, too, that for the opening date of the Qatar World Cup (21 November) we have a very ‘slippery actions’ Mars 22 Gemini square Neptune 22 Pisces.

    We shall see. I so enjoy watching various sports, and hate the way things have developed.

  3. Gnarly Dude. LONDON 2012 Olympics …. believe it or not Boris was Mayor of London then and the Olympics went like a dream and it would seem everything built was built with the idea what it would be used for afterwards. The volunteers were so good Amazing outcome
    Were the heavens in accord with all that good outcome. Backhanders did not seem present most people who volunteered in their thousands had a good time so the spirit of the Olympics was well present at the London 2012 event. It seemed to lack the get rich quick attitude which now pervades sport. Perhaps I am looking back now with rose tinted glasses.

    • Nina – the Games were memorable, enjoyable and a great testament to what Britain can do when we put our mind to it. Made even better by the medal-winning performances of our athletes.

      If you dig below the surface, it’s less glamorous. British cycling, swimming, gymnastics and other sports are all beginning to see allegations of bullying, abuse and potential PEDs in the pressure to get medals.

      The wealth inequality between the executives running governing bodies and the athletes playing the sports, or doing the volunteering reflects what we’re seeing in other areas of British life. The British people are very willing to get involved in causes to make them successful, I’m thinking of all those unpaid volunteers who have done the work of the vaccine rollout this past year while test&trace bosses are getting a contract for £37billion.

      And as for Boris, no surprise to see him jumping on a bandwagon that was initiated long before he was elected as Mayor. Just like he did last year with the Euros when England reached the final or clapping for the NHS on the doorstep.

      I’m sorry if I sound cynical. I have a natal Neptune-Saturn opposition. When the idealism pops, my saturnine side kicks in and has a good moan!!!

  4. Wouldn’t it be great if The Olympics could be centred around regions that might truly benefit. Like say, the Caribbean. Let’s give the smaller nations a chance!

    • It is the host country/ies that invest in hosting the Olympics. So, as Olympics become more demanding events, due to demands by the Olympics Committee, the various sports authorities (the various equivalents of FIFA for other sports), hosting it has become the preserve of richer countries, simply because poorer countries can’t afford hosting the Olympics.

      Indeed, now the cost is escalating so much that more and more countries/cities, even in the developed world, are pulling out of hosting the Olympics, because there are better things to spend the money on within the city/country.

      That is perhaps where London was at its best, not in the hosting of the Olympics itself, but in having a sustainable legacy (the new housing and park space in East London and redevelopment of Stratford, etc). Thus, though the money was spent, the beneficial effects can be seen for years after the Olympic flame is extinguished.

      All the above (the legacy planning, etc) also requires money, again, something poorer countries can’t afford.

  5. I am a life long watcher of the Olympics. I have always bought into the ideals of it, transcending the ugliness of Geopolitics briefly to come together in positive expression of togetherness and sportsmanship. It can be inspiring in ways few things can, that when we focus the positives of our species we are capable of so much.

    Pluto in Capricron has pretty much gutted that at this point, though the rot was there much further back if anyone remembers the East German teams. Its interesting that China is topping and tailing that period with its Summer event in 2008 (though Pluto was briefly retro in Sag) and now Winter event, Pluto will be in Aquarius when it gets to Paris.

    Sport is now utterly corrupted as its become such a worldwide economic juggernaut, and the IOC itself is forcing politics on the event by selecting such innapropriate host countries. Athletes are shuttled between representing different countries relying on fairly tenuous connections which makes a mockery of representing the place you feel a part of.

    Interesting Pluto conjunct Mercury with the GB team told ( and likely all the others) to use burner phones to avoid being hacked by the Chinese, noone is even pretending to be diplomatic about the reality. Moon also void of course.

    • Well, one can review the results of the 1936 Berlin summer Olympics…kind of slanted toward the supremacy of the Aryan race. Jesse Owens kind of put them in their palce, tho.

      • That Adolf Hitler refused to shake hands with Jesse Owens is one of the great myths of the 20th century, but he was snubbed by Roosevelt.

        Quote 1 from History News Network “Everyone knows that at the 1936 Olympics Hitler snubbed Jesse Owens. As the story goes, after Owens won one gold medal, Hitler, incensed, stormed out of Olympic Stadium so he wouldn’t have to congratulate Owens on his victory.

        Such a performance would have been perfectly in character, but it didn’t happen. William J. Baker, Owens’s biographer, says the newspapers made up the whole story. Owens himself originally insisted it wasn’t true, but eventually he began saying it was, apparently out of sheer boredom with the issue.

        The facts are simple. Hitler did not congratulate Owens, but that day he didn’t congratulate anybody else either, not even the German winners. As a matter of fact, Hitler didn’t congratulate anyone after the first day of the competition. That first day he had shaken hands with all the German victors, but that had gotten him in trouble with the members of the Olympic Committee. They told him that to maintain Olympic neutrality, he would have to congratulate everyone or no one. Hitler chose to honor no one.

        Hitler did snub a black American athlete, but it was Cornelius Johnson, not Jesse Owens. It happened the first day of the meet. Just before Johnson was to be decorated, Hitler left the stadium. A Nazi spokesman explained that Hitler’s exit had been pre-scheduled, but no one believes that.

        Several other misconceptions about the 1936 Olympics are prevalent. Not only was Owens not rebuffed by Hitler, Owens wasn’t shunned by the German audience at the Berlin stadium either. Baker reports that Owens so captured the imagination of the crowd it gave him several ear-shattering ovations. Owens had been prepared for a hostile reception; a coach had warned him in advance not to be upset by anything that might happen in the stands.”Ignore the insults,” Owens was told,”and you’ll be all right.” Later Owens recalled that he had gotten the greatest ovations of his career at Berlin.

        Another popular belief is that the games marked a humiliating moment for the Nazis because a few blacks walked away with a fistful of medals while Hitler had predicted the Teutonic lads would be the big winners, proof of the superman abilities of the white race. In reality, the competition was anything but a German humiliation. It is forgotten that Germany managed to pick up more medals than all the other countries combined. Hitler was pleased with the outcome.”

        Quote 2 from New Jersey Institute for Social Justice “We enjoy telling the story of Jesse Owens defeating Adolf Hitler. The tale brightens our American spirit, encourages our sense of greatness.

        We ignore the story of Owens and his return to the United States. After winning four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Owens was snubbed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who declined to send a congratulatory telegram or invite the world’s greatest athlete to the White House.

        In Germany, Owens sprinted his way to destruction of white superiority, but this sprint did nothing to alter the reality of America in 1936. The night he was honored at a dinner in New York’s glittering Waldorf-Astoria, he arrived via service elevator. African-Americans were prohibited from riding alongside whites on standard elevators.”

  6. Mention of the IOC brings up another Pluto in Cap/Aqua thought.

    When it was originally set up, it was DeCoubertin’s intention that IOC members/officials were the rich and landed – people who didn’t need to be paid, could remain independent of influence and keep the Olympic movement would be free from political interference. That probably highlights the Jupiter-Neptune-Pluto idealism of the IOC chart and of course, as time has rolled on it’s been used politically almost every Olympics since at least 1936.

    The Pluto in Scorpio era began the move towards sponsorship and professionalism of athletes. The IOC members began lining their own pockets, a gravy train of gifts and bribes for bidding cities with no-one able to rein them in. Similar stories for UEFA, FIFA, IAAF and I’m sure many other of these governing bodies.

    The financial crash and seeing previous host cities left with rotting infrastructure* and huge debt has seen the number of cities bidding dwindling to the point where Brisbane was the only bidder for 2032. (Notably the first unopposed bid since LA84 which prompted the commercialism that subsequently took place).

    I wonder if we will see further pushback against these unelected, unaccountable institutions in coming years.

    * London came out of 2012 relatively well off. It isn’t perfect but, maybe it says something positive about Britain that we hosted a decent games and the infrastructure has been used subsequently.

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