KEEP PUTTIN' THE PEDAL TO THE MEDALS:

Closing torch ceremony at S.F. canceled (Juliana Barbassa and Marcus Wohlsen, April 9, 2008, AP)

Officials say the planned closing ceremony for the Olympic torch at the San Francisco Bay waterfront is canceled and another one will take place at an undisclosed location.

Dawn Fraser to boycott Olympics (The Australian, April 09, 2008)

AUSTRALIAN Olympic legend Dawn Fraser will make her own protest over China's treatment of Tibet, refusing to attend the Beijing Games in August.

It will be only the second Olympic Games the four-times gold medallist has not attended since making her Olympic debut in Melbourne, in 1956.

“As a spectator, I am making my own statement by not going,” Fraser said. [...]

China should also never have been awarded the right to host the Games on account of their human rights record, she said.

I don't want to run with the torch as a caged woman: Kiran Bedi (Sheela Bhatt, April 09, 2008, Rediff)

Former Delhi top cop Kiran Bedi has lashed out at the tight security arrangements ahead of the Olympic torch relay to be held in the Capital on April 17.

"I am a sportswoman. I do not want to run with the torch as a caged woman. Why turn India Gate into a zoo? What is the point of running with the torch? I do not want to participate in a caged environment. If you make the environment so suffocating, then it is better to let the torch travel on wheels or with the Army." Bedi said, speaking exclusively with rediff.com.

Bedi, a former national-level tennis champion, is having second thoughts on participating in the controversial torch relay ceremony to be held in New Delhi.

Bedi's possible turnaround may displease the Chinese. "I am not running to please anybody. I am running out of my love of sports. I am into it purely as a sportswoman," she asserted.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 9, 2008 4:38 PM