The Paradox of a Paragon of Virtue

This is not the first time in my distinguished career with the IOC that I have taken a principled stand. As an Olympic delegate, I fought with the energy of a thousand suns to persuade the Belgian authorities to go to the Moscow Games in 1980, and to accept their obvious rigging of at least five track and field events.

But it's in the last seven years as IOC president, as I presided over a 40 percent increase in revenue, that I've truly shown my Olympic character. At the 2004 Games in Athens, I resolutely stood by Iran when its flag bearer, Arash Miresmaeili, refused to fight an Israeli in judo. Earlier this year, I defended the Beijing organizers when Hollywood director Steven Spielberg withdrew as artistic director of the Opening Ceremonies over China's repeated broken human rights promises, such as detentions and forced demolitions of homes for stadiums. "Spielberg's absence will not hurt the Games," I declared, with my clarion voice. "The Beijing Games are much stronger than individuals."

I've praised the Chinese organizers at every opportunity, remarking on the "excellent preparation of the Games" by their bulldozers and cleansings. I proudly cooperated in censorship, from the obfuscation of their air quality problems, to the gagging of athletes on the subjects of politics and religion. In July, I announced that, "for the first time, foreign media will be able to report freely and publish their work freely in China." Meanwhile, my people were arriving at a secret deal with officials to allow Internet censorship, without the knowledge of the media or the rest of the IOC.

All of these actions should be taken into account when the IOC decides whether to reelect me as president after the Beijing Games. As I said last month in an interview with Deutsche Presse-Agentur, the question will be, "Have I been able to contribute to the [Olympic] values?"

To sum up, over the years I have been an ally to the Soviet Union, Iran and China, and now I have demonstrated that I am not afraid to take on a Jamaican. My expressions of moral leadership will hopefully win me reelection, but if not, anyone who is thinking of turning me out of office should consider who they would replace me with in the gallery of freedom fighters that is the IOC. As Twain also wrote, "I am clean -- artificially -- like the rest."

With my public stance against Bolt, my legacy, I feel, is complete. You might apply to me an observation once made by the American civil rights scholar W.E.B. DuBois: perhaps no one "ever took himself and his own perfectness with such disconcerting seriousness as the modern white man."

As for Bolt, something else DuBois once wrote, rhetorically, applies to him. "How does it feel to be a problem?" he asked.