You have to give the International Olympic Committee points for consistency: When something goes awry, the IOC is quick to react in exactly the wrong way.

Today, as reported on The New York Times' website, the IOC has decided to bar future Olympic torch relays from going international - in response to the anti-China protests mounted in Paris, San Francisco and London last year when the torch passed through those cities on the way to Beijing.

All torch relays, starting with the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, will officially be limited to the host country. (Both the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, B.C., and the 2012 Summer Olympics in London were planning relays that stayed within the host countries.)

"When the torch relay is inside the host country there is more control," said Gilbert Felli, the IOC executive director. And with the IOC, it's always about control - mostly control of the Olympics' image. (Fun fact: The first Olympic torch relay was held for the 1936 games in Berlin - and was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, as a way to connect the ancient Greeks to his Aryan supermen.)

Of course, the IOC would never acknowledge that the reason for the protests during the Beijing torch relay was because of the oppressive regime in China.

Labels: Olympics