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Every couple of years when the Olympics comes around the whole world watches, but not necessarily for the same reasons.  Some look forward to cheering for their country; others love the extravagance of the opening and closing ceremonies.  However for certain athletes they anticipate their opportunity for a better life, which may not come through success in competition but by seeking asylum in a country far less oppressive than their own.  During the recent London summer Olympics the headline was "7 missing in London" in reference to the Cameroonian athletes that went "missing" during the Games.  Cameroon, according to the CIA Word Fact Book, boasts an average life span of 55 years, an HIV/AIDS prevalence rate of 5.3% (compared to the United Kingdom at 0.2%), and has the 9th highest maternal mortality rate in the world.  England, 7. Cameroon, 0.

The Olympics has a long history of athlete defectors dating back to the 1948 Olympics, coincidentally also held in London. England, Canada, Australia and the United States, countries who have all hosted more than one Olympics Games, have not surprisingly been the common choice of new beginnings for athletes living under oppressive regimes.  As the say, with great power comes great responsibility.  The Olympics is not the only event where athletes look to defect.  When you live in fear and poverty any opportunity will do, as evidenced by three Cuban baseball players who defected during the World Cup of Women's baseball hosted in Edmonton, Alberta.   For those of you who know Edmonton it is not necessarily the best that Canada has to offer, or as one person commented on the article, "One trip  to the area just North of downtown and they'll be begging to go back to Cuba". Sadly that also means that anything that Edmonton has to offer must be better than what they had in Cuba.
It is a human right to have access to sport, play and leisure time - Article #24.  It is also a human right to be able to seek asylum from persecution - Article #14.  Many people believe that these types of international sporting events is where politics comes only to spectate; that politics has no place in sports.    Supposedly, sport is where we come together to appreciate excellence of human performance but I would argue that the ability to appreciate the "finer points in life" comes with the ability to live without fear.  One blogger for The Asylumist writes

Frankly, I think it is wonderful when high-profile athletes defect from repressive regimes. It serves as a visible repudiation of those regimes and perhaps provides some succor to the regimes' opponents.

While one athlete defecting from Sudan will probably not bring down the government, it does serve as a powerful reminder that the government of that country represses and murders its own people...

Does sport bring us together? Yes, it can.  Does sport highlight greatness of human achievement? Yes, it can.  But for all the good that we find in sport we should also question what large spectacles, such as the opening and closing ceremonies of the Olympics, simultaneously hide.  Remember that the athletes who defect are the lucky ones.  That one athlete who successfully "disappears" represents thousands, if not millions, more who will probably never have the chance to exercise human right #14.  When everyone is looking at the fireworks what is going on behind our backs?  Or, perhaps more accurately, what is that we have turned our backs on in order to focus on the pretty lights?

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