From New Zealand: Mega-Olympic champion event rider Mark Todd is coming out of retirement at the age of 51 in hopes of making the New Zealand team and compete in Hong Kong this August.

His comment on the anti-Chinese protests as the Olympic Torch circles the globe (or at least tries to):

“I think you could probably do more while you were there in a peaceful sort of protest. I think athletes in general would be obliged to do something like that.”

Todd was quoted by the New Zealand Herald as having made the comments to The Press newspaper.

The New Zealand Olympic Committee begs to disagree: “The International Olympic Committee has a view, which we subscribe to, that it is not an appropriate forum to be making comment about race, religion, creed or political stances whatsoever.”

Todd’s comments drew praise from political allies of the Tibetan liberation cause in New Zealand.Information for this post was gleaned from reports provided by the excellent “Racing and Sports” web site in Australia.