4 Aug 2008

Athletes free to protest but not at Games sites

12:08 pm on 4 August 2008

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge says athletes are free to criticise China but asked them not to do so in Games stadiums.

Rogge says the Olympic family contained 205 different teams, several of them representing countries involved in religious or military conflicts, and that these conflicts must be kept out of the Games.

He says if the IOC allows propaganda in the Olympic village or in the stadiums, it will be the end of Olympic harmony.