The times they are a-changing -- Mao Tse-tung, bikinis and beach volleyball

The times they are a-changing -- Mao Tse-tung, bikinis and beach volleyball
ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING, NOVEMBER 21: How’s this for a revolution: Skimpy swimsuits on Tiananmen Square.

Two brash young Olympic Sports beach volleyball and triathlon have won official backing to compete on China’s best-known public monument and most sacred revolutionary ground, should Beijing play host to the 2008 Games. The preliminary agreements show how far China’s often unyielding Communist government is prepared to bend to bring the Olympics to Beijing. It also adds weight to arguments that an Olympics could promote change in China.

‘‘I think having the beach volleyball competition on a globally eye-catching site like that will have a huge impact,’’ said Guo Jinzhong, a spokesman for Beijing’s bid committee.

Swimsuited athletes at play on China’s political and spiritual heart could be a watershed, changing the way Chinese and foreigners view the world’s largest square.

Tiananmen, after all, is where Mao Tse-tung declared the Communist victory in 1949. Millions of fanatical Red Guards filled the Square to pay homage to Mao during the radical cultural revolution. His portrait still hangs from Tiananmen, the imperial era Gate of Heavenly Peace at the North end.

In the minds of many foreigners, Tiananmen has been a symbol of brutality, not National greatness. The military crushed demonstrators on the Square in 1989.Les McDonald, president of the International Triathlon Union (ITU), said he told the Chinese that triathletes on Tiananmen would help the world get past the 1989 crackdown that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands.

‘‘I said, ‘You’ve got to find a way of marketing bloody Tiananmen Square so that it’s not the only image they have is a bloody tank with a university student,’’’ McDonald said, referring to one of the most chilling images from the 1989 crackdown.

Signs that Beijing is getting the message are evident. On Saturday, more than 5,000 people jogged, walked and rollerskated twice around Tiananmen on a charity run for cancer research. The Canadian embassy, one of the sponsors, originally suggested the more pastoral Temple of Heaven Park as a venue but the city offered Tiananmen instead.

And once in the Square, the Canadians faced limitations: No sponsors’ logos on a stage erected in the middle and no banners.

Officials said Tiananmen ‘‘is a National monument and that it would not be appropriate, that this is not a commercial venue, embassy official Jennifer May said.

Beijing appears to be willing to do more for the Olympics, McDonald said he reached agreement with Chinese officials on a visit to Beijing last week to hold the triathlon partly on Tiananmen finishing in front of Mao’s portrait. Route details remain to be finalised, but in principle there should be no problem, an official at the bid committee’s sport department confirmed.

Beijing vice mayor Liu Jingmin also agreed in principle earlier this month to have beach volleyball on the Square, although details still need discussion, Guo said.Plans call for erecting two stadiums with 280 tons of sand each and a total 17,500 seats between Mao’s portrait and a boxy mausoleum in the Square’s heart that holds Mao’s glass-encased body, Sai Angelo Squeo, beach volleyball co-ordinator for the International Volleyball Federation. For effect, Chinese officials could hardly have picked two more standout sports. Triathlon was the first medal event of the Sydney Olympics, starting and finishing in front of the city’s Opera House.

While Tiananmen has been a venue for runs, martial arts displays and National celebrations, it never has played host to a sport as funky as beach volleyball, whose skimpily attired players entertained big crowds on Sydney’s Bondi Beach with exciting rallies interspersed with blaring pop music.

‘‘The Olympic Games is done to open up new concepts. You don’t want to go backwards in the history of 5,000 years and more for China, you want to go into the future,’’ Squeo said. ‘‘The Olympic Games can accelerate this process drastically.’’

Competition for 2008 is tough. Osaka proposed beach volleyball be held next to its graceful castle, while Paris offered a spot beside the Eiffel Tower, Squeo said. Istanbul and Toronto are the other two bidding cities.

In Beijing’s eagerness for the Olympics, sports officials risk drawing heat for suggesting a venue where protesters died for democracy in 1989 - a criticism Squeo rejects.

‘‘We have to see the future,’’ he said. ‘‘What happened in the past is the past.’’