“After Beijing bubble bursts, can the IOC save the Olympics?”

Robert Thompson, Trustee Professor of television, radio, and film in the Newhouse School and director of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture, was quoted in The Associate Press story “After Beijing bubble bursts, can the IOC save the Olympics?” The Winter Games in Beijing were marked both by challenges with COVID-19 protocols and a number of controversies, including a Russian doping scandal with 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva.

Thompson, an expert on pop culture and television, explained that while the incident made for interesting television, it went largely unnoticed. “Surprising, weird and hyper-dramatic,” Thompson said. “Yet today, I searched the hallways in vain to find anyone who had seen it, or even heard tell of it. I’ve been paying close attention to the Olympics for 40 years, and never have I seen one surrounded by so much silence, so little buzz.”