Wintry nix

 The Blob loves him some Winter Olympics.

Downhill skiing, aka Falling With Style. Short-track speedskating, aka NASCAR With Switchblades. Skeleton, aka Concussion Protocol Alert.

And then, of course, there's ski jumping (more Falling With Style), the biathlon (Guns And Oxygen Debt) and curling (This Is Boring But Why Am I Still Watching It 45 Minutes Later?).

Love it all. Love it.

But when the Winter Games fire up again in February, I may not watch. I even hope there's nothing to watch.

This year's Games are in Beijing, China, see. And right now China is doing what repressive regimes always do when challenged, which is make those who challenge the regime disappear.

Vladimir Putin in Russia is famous for making media critics and political opponents turn up dead, and the Chinese are perhaps even more adept at it. And this time it involves an athlete.

Her name is Peng Shuai, and she's a top-ranked Chinese tennis player who recently accused former Chinese official Zhang Gaoli of sexual abuse. Her post about it on social media subsequently vanished, and now she's gone missing, too.

Beijing's Winter Games have therefore lost some appeal for me. And I would hope it would for the athletes involved, too, though that's likely a fantasy more suited to Disney than reality.

You might hope the world's athletes would tell the Chinese "Produce Shuai unhurt or we bail on your Games," but that's not going to happen. Solidarity among elite athletes is almost always trumped by self-interest, even in times when so many athletes have grown a social conscience. About the only thing that might happen, therefore, are a few scattered protests by the participants.

Even that might be a bridge too far.

In the meantime, here's hoping Shuai turns up alive and unhurt. And that the Chinese government decides to take her charges seriously.

I know. More Disney fantasy.