As the Georgia/Russia Crisis continues, the West is finding itself impotent to do anything meaningful to stop the conflict. It is obvious that the West will not intervene militarily and with oil as the major source of its wealth, economic sanctions against Russia would not work. But there is a way to respond to this conflict that is low cost and will hit Russia in a way that will harm their prestige — take the 2014 Winter Olympics away from Russia and award them to another city.  We are still six years away from those games so it should not be too hard for another city to prepare, especially if they are moved to a city that has hosted the Olympics in the past, such as Salt Lake City or Nagano, Japan.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is not known as an agency willing to take a strong stand on anything to do with politics or morality, but there is an argument to be made that could give them cover — the security of the athletes and the spectators of the Games.  You can see from the map below that Sochi is right near the border of the Abkhazia region of Georgia, one of the areas in which Russian troops have been sent in and where there has been fighting between the two countries.

If there were any brave members of the IOC, or thoughtful leaders of the industrialized countries, they could already be raising this possibility.  And if they want to protect themselves from the politics of it, they could simply explain that they are worried about the security of the Games. And there is no sign that the region will get less stable in the years to come. Sochi, for example, was once actually part of Abkhazia, until Stalin reassigned it to Russia, and could conceivably be wrapped into the crisis of nationalities that is taking place between Russia and Georgia.

I woudl hope that the IOC has learned from its China experience that despite any promises made by a host country, there is no guarantee that conflict and oppression will cease well before an Olympic Games.  If they really did care about the impact that their games have, they would seriously consider changing the fate of the Sochi Games.

http://www.theseminal.com/2008/08/14/move-the-2014-winter-olympics-away-from-sochi-russia/