Former U.S. Olympic speedskater Joey Cheek, founder of a group of athletes called Team Darfur, had a visa for China revoked shortly before he was to embark for Beijing two weeks ago. He had planned to urge China, an economic partner of Sudan, to help make peace in Sudan's war-torn Darfur region.

Here are excerpts from comments Cheek e-mailed Wednesday to The Associated Press, regarding how the Chinese authorities and the International Olympic Committee have addressed issues related to dissent and political free speech at the Olympics:

"I would love to see even more athletes involved in speaking out about not only what I believe in, but what they believe in as well. I think that even if there was an athlete that wanted to speak out on issues of human rights, he might be silenced by whatever IOC official is mediating that press event, which leads me to my biggest problem with these Olympics. The idea that the games are only about sport - that has N...

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