ARGENTINE TV: OLYMPICS CAN’T ESCAPE POLITICS

Once again, the Olympics, which is supposed to be a politics-free zone, has been used for political gamesmanship — this time by Argentina, which secretly produced a TV ad showing one of its athletes, hockey player Fernando Zylberg, training there. It aired on Argentine television stations on Wednesday. “To compete on English soil, we are training on Argentine soil,” the ad concludes. Argentina has long claimed the Falklands, which lie 300 miles from its shores, although Argentines have never occupied them and they have been a British territory since 1833. British Foreign Secretary William Hague today (Friday) called the ad a “stunt” and accused Argentina of trying to exploit the Olympics for “political purposes.” Ironically, the ad was produced by the British-owned Young & Rubicam advertising agency.