What does this picture to the right have to do with the 2008 Olympics in China and the United Kingdom? Ah ... well ... sit back and relax. I'm going to break it down history's memory lane.

The picture to the right is of US athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos with Australia's Peter Norman during the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. Go to wikipedia to read all about it, especially the heart-breaking end of Peter Norman's life.

In this report from ITN they cite the 1968 demonstration as the reason the Olympics Committee added a clause to their charter saying "no kind of demonstration, or political, religious or racial propaganda in the Olympic sites, venues or other areas" is permitted and can be used for disqualification or expulsion from the games. And it is said clause which the British Olympics Association was trying to enforce by obligating all athletes to sign a contract that would have had them relinquish their right to criticize or comment about the political situation in China.

Of course, they have seen a backlash:

The spokesman added: "It was certainly implied in the old agreement, but with the level of political interest in this particular Games we felt it was right for our younger athletes who had not been to an Olympics before to realize that there was this Charter Rule in place. "What we are not trying to do is stop any athlete talking to the media. If someone is asked a question and they respond, that is not what we are talking about. But if someone uses the Games to express or deliver their political views, then that would be different."

The type of gesture to which the BOA is referring would presumably be of the kind made by Olympic 200 metre medallists Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Mexico Games, where they each wore a black glove on the podium to signify Black Power and to highlight calls for civil rights in the United States.

Amnesty International campaigns director, Tim Hancock, said: "People in China can't speak out about human rights without fear of reprisals; people in Britain can. It's up to each individual to decide what they say about China's human rights record."

The Black Power Salute of 1968 not only was meant to commemorate the pride of African Americans. The United States had already witnessed the Poor People's March on Washington and it had listened to Martin Luther King's Let Freedom Ring speech. It also grieved him and Robert F. Kennedy after both were assassinated; and all the while the war in Vietnam raged on.

Even though all three athletes suffered lifetime bans from the Olympic Games, the Smith's and Carlos' fists up in the air became symbol of an unstoppable cultural and political shift in the United States.

The UK government, afraid their athletes might make a similar statement against China's human rights abuses, wanted their athletes to sign away their right to free speech. Yet amidst protests and accusations of "sucking up" to tyrannical regimes, they've backed down and are "looking into the wording" of the athletes' contracts.

The whole incident speaks volumes to how the Olympic arena can take a simple act as a fist up in the air and transform it into a symbol of heroic political rebellion.