Wednesday, December 1, 2021

The Right Thing -- Again!

The Womens Tennis Association continues to do the right thing in its ongoing standoff with the Chinese Communist Party in regards to the latter's silencing and censorship of its own star athlete, Peng Shuai.

After WTA president Steve Simons said last month that Chinese officials needed to investigate Peng's claims of coerced sex and sexual harassment by a top Chinese government official, instead of disappearing her and staging videos that showed she was completely OK and had "changed her mind," he backed it up by saying the WTA wouldn't stand for it if China didn't act.

China didn't act, and Simons announced today that the WTA would cancel all tournaments scheduled for the country indefinitely. Regardless, by the way, of the cost.

The WTA continues to demonstrate to sports leagues and companies how they should respond to a regime that tries to control and dictate the terms under which it will work with them. And, by the way, it's a good quick refresher for women's gymnastics groups about how one handles things when one's athletes claim to have been harassed or assaulted by one's own officials.

I'd suggest the International Olympic Committee take note as well, but I have trouble typing when I snicker.

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