British Olympic chiefs are to force athletes to sign a contract promising not to speak out about China’s appalling human rights record - or face being banned from travelling to Beijing.
The move - which raises the spectre of the order given to the England football team to give a Nazi salute in Berlin in 1938 - immediately provoked a storm of protest.
The controversial clause has been inserted into athletes’ contracts for the first time and forbids them from making any political comment about countries staging the Olympic Games.