Who are the nameless Chinese runners in blue track suits and wearing black fanny packs? They certainly made their presence known during the Olympic torch relay legs in London and Paris, which fell into disarray when demonstrators protesting China's human rights record and the country's actions toward Tibet disrupted the Running of the Flame numerous times this week. My friend Karl B. sent me a link to a story in Britain's The Independent yesterday titled, "Questions raised over mysterious 'men in blue'." It says, "for any of the athletes, protesters, journalists and even police who found themselves guided, barged or fighting with this particularly committed group of Chinese minders, the identity and function of the 'boys in blue tracksuits' was of paramount importance." The story includes interesting photos from Getty Images (above) and the AP (top). My take: they probably come from China's Army and Renmin Wujing (People's Armed Police), a combination of SWAT team and riot police. Will be very interesting to see if they are on today's torch relay route in San Francisco -- the Olympic flame's only appearance in the United States -- where police will be out in force to prevent disruptions and where authorities expect more than 6,000 protesters to turn out.
1 comment:
Terril, I'm enjoying the blog, it's a nice summary of events. I have neither the time nor the desire to comb through all the available news sources for Olympic coverage so I appreciate your selection and condensing of information. It's convenient and interesting. The combination of fact and opinion seems to be working well, but keep in mind that you are already stating an opinion of sorts simply by determining what you think is most notable and post-worthy. Don't feel obligated to add personal comments if you don't find them necessary, I find your writing style to be somewhat personal as it is and I think it works well. It has the voice of an individual, not of a generic media source, and that makes it a more comfortable read. You should look into creating a separate profile or resume page outside of blogger as a means of listing your credentials, or perhaps even creating your own site using blogging software.
Best regards,
J0T
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