Why pretend the Olympics are not political?

Jacques Rogge and the IOC are continuing to insist that the Olympic Games is an entirely apolitical event and we should all ignore human rights issues in China.
They suggest sport and politics are non-overlapping magesteria (to borrow from Stephen Jay Gould, whose NOMA theory cordoned religion and science off into separate compartments).
Claiming that the Olympics can be hosted in a political vacuum is disingenuous in the extreme.
The Olympics are most certainly political. Indeed, this was part of the thinking behind awarding the 2008 Games to Beijing in the first place.
The idea was that the attention of the world would be a catalyst for social change in China.
And in many ways, it's working - although not always in the ways intended. On the downside, we've seen claims that Beijing is rounding up social activists so as to keep dissent off the streets this summer.
But in the plus column, the global attention given to events in Tibet and Darfur might have been significantly less focused if China was not preparing for the Games.
It remains the hope that Beijing - which cares deeply about what outsiders think - will respond to the pressure by modernizing its society at a speed that keeps pace with its economic progress.
Foreigners complained of pollution, spitting, queue-skipping and language barriers, so Beijing is doing its level best to address these (with mixed degrees of success, it must be said).
If pressure to exercise restraint in Tibet, ease censorship and tolerate free speech are met with positive moves by the Chinese government, then the great Olympic gamble will have paid off.
But regardless of the eventual outcome, let's not pretend that the Olympic Games were awarded without one eye on politics.
Or that international sporting events take place in a parallel universe where politics is not an issue.