Sinosphere | China Investigates a Top Sports Official Over Corruption

The inquiry into the official, Xiao Tian, deputy director of the General Administration of Sport and vice chairman of the Chinese Olympic Committee, comes just weeks before the International Olympic Committee is to decide between Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, as the site for the 2022 Winter Games.

In a text message, a spokeswoman for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games Bid Committee wrote that the investigation would not affect the citys application.

Mr. Xiao was last seen publicly leaving a work meeting for a break around 10 am on Thursday, according to The Beijing News.

Three hours later, the party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced the investigation on its website, accusing Mr. Xiao of “serious breaches of discipline and the law,” a term that usually refers to corruption. The commission gave no further details on the accusation.

On Friday, Mr. Xiao’s name had been removed from the websites of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games Bid Committee and the General Administration of Sport.

Mr. Xiao had worked in sports administration for more than three decades. Last year, he also joined the World Anti-Doping Agencys Foundation Board, the agencys top decision-making body, and the International Basketball Federation as vice president.

China is in the midst of a vigorous anticorruption campaign, which has extended to sports, in part because soccer has been hit by match-fixing scandals.

Chris Eaton, executive director for sport integrity at the International Center for Sport Security, based in Paris and Doha, argued that such investigations into sports corruption was unlikely to harm Beijings bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Taking action publicly and transparently against high-level sport officials should actually enhance Chinas bidding for international competitions, he wrote in an email. Lesser nations simply hide or suppress it.

The International Olympic Committee will choose the host city for the 2022 Winter Olympics on July 31. Beijing is prepared to pay $3.9 billion to put on the games, Zhang Jiandong, deputy mayor of Beijing, said this year.

Beijing spent more than $40 billion to put on the 2008 Summer Olympics. Last year, Russia spent $50 billion to hold the Winter Olympics in Sochi.

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