It is, perhaps, just as well that the Olympic Games come around only once every four years. Hardly an event goes by, it seems, without it serving as a focus for political agitation of one hue or another. It is an opportunity too good to miss, with the eyes of the world's media fixed for a few weeks on one point on the globe. The tradition goes back to 1936 when the Berlin games were used as an advertisement for the might of the Third Reich. Whatever faults Adolf Hitler had, and they were legion, he knew a thing or two about PR. Since then there have been numerous boycotts to try and focus attention on some complaint or other - at Melbourne (1956), Munich (1972), Montreal (1976), Moscow (1980) and, despite trying to break the run by holding the games in a city starting with a different letter, Los Angeles (1984). There have been growing calls for a boycott of this year's games, which kick off in Beijing on August 8, in protest at China's alleged human rights record in Tibet and its perceived environmental failings.
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