The Beijing Games are the legacy of the odious Juan Antonio Samaranch, a man who pushed China’s cause relentlessly. Samaranch, a man who as late as 1974 was happy to give fascist salutes under the Franco regime in Spain, held a photoshoot in Tiananmen Square in 1993, glibly riding a bike where four years earlier tanks had run over students.
The New Statesman brought attention to his chequered past in 1993.
Samaranch deserted from the army of the Spanish Republic during the civil war and hid in Barcelona until Franco had won. He spent the next thirty-five years climbing the ladder of fascist politics, ending up as the head of Franco’s rubber stamp Catalan ‘parliament’. Ten years after the Allies discovered Auschwitz, he volunteered for the elite fascist Falange, wore its uniform and gave the fascist salute. This he did until Franco died in 1975.
And this is a man who we laughably are supposed to refer to as “his excellency” and who is a life vice-president of the IOC.
