From Berlin ’36 to Beijing ’08, the Olympic torch is passed to tyrants

WHAT are you doing this summer? Just think: if it weren’t for Juan Antonio Samaranch, one-time crony of Spanish dictator General Franco, we might all be looking forward to a fortnight on the sofa this August taking in a blissfully uncontroversial Olympic Games from the shores of Lake Ontario.

Who — apart from the climate change brigade — would have minded if the President, the Taoiseach and a planeload of ministers flew over to take in the spectacle for themselves?

But the Toronto Games were not to be. Beset by mounting drug scandals in sport, the former head of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) swung the games in Beijing’s direction. Popularly depicted as grasping freeloaders, IOC members yearn to be regarded as world statesmen dispensing the multinationals’ billions on just one city every four years.