China Denies Olympics Are Happening

By Mark

Bloggo the Week!, News, Not-Entirely-Factual, Sports

BEIJING - Chinese authorities have released a statement today denying that any Olympics are happening in Beijing or any region of China at this time.  Zhi Huang, spokesman for the People’s Republic of China, stated Thursday morning during a press conference “While we recognize that the Olympics exist as an event that does happen, there are no such events occurring in China at this point in time.”

When questioned regarding the highly publicized opening ceremonies, viewed throughout the world on live television Huang insisted that he had not seen or heard of these videos and suggested that modern video editing could easily be manipulated to create such rogue videos.

Many high profile athletes have gone to Beijing in the past week however Huang insisted that while these visits are unconfirmed, Beijing remains a popular tourist destination.  After a media frenzy this past week regarding swimmer Michael Phelps, the Chinese spokesman responded “While we recognize that Michael Phelps is indeed a professional athlete and he may have visited China recently with the proper clearance, however there are no sanctioned swim meets occurring in China at this time.”

For the past several years, the Beijing area has been under development with new stadiums and infrastructure which would generally be a requirement of hosting an upcoming Summer Olympics.  Huang noted during the conference “Beijing is a blossoming city with many requirements for sporting venues, similar to any large city in the world.  The city is under continual upgrade and the most recent additions to the city should be no indication of any intent to host the Olympics.”

All Olympic athletes were out of the country at the time and were unavailable for comment.

Mark @ August 18, 2008