The tanks won.

That's the message the International Olympic Committee sent last week, when it awarded the 2008 Summer Games to Beijing, China.The IOC may have conveniently forgotten, but it has only been 12 years since armed government troops and tanks rolled on Tiananmen Square and massacred demonstrators at a pro-democracy rally in Beijing.

For one glorious moment, though, the brutal bloodbath was averted when a lone man stood before a row of tanks and gently held up his hand, halting the killing machines in their tracks. It is the single most poignant demonstration of courage, dignity and defiance I have ever seen.

So when I traveled throughout China for 21 days on assignment before the Atlanta Olympics, one of the first things I did was borrow a bike early one morning and pedal to the center of Tiananmen Square, where I sat for a long, long time. The bloodstains had long since been scrubbed away and the police presence was oppressive -- citizens seemed afraid to even look up at the square as they pedaled or walked by -- but I swear, just below the palpable fear and tension in the air, you could still feel the spirit of those murdered students and that one brave soul who proved too powerful for a tank.

But now, by handing the Olympics over to the same government that ordered that massacre and countless others since then, what the IOC did last week was put that tank in gear, hit the gas and -- 12 years later -- let it roll right on through.

The Olympic spirit has been trampled.

The Games have been lost.

The tanks won.

Maybe it's just time to give up altogether on the Olympics. I've had enough of Tonya Harding and the Dream Team and the U.S. 4x100 relay team, haven't you? I've had enough of NBC's cheesy, tape-delayed coverage, the embarrassing saga in Salt Lake, and the fact that officials have all but admitted the Games will never be drug free.

Now, though, what was supposed to be the finest example we have in this world of the collective power of the human spirit will soon be held in a country where Amnesty International says more than 19,000 citizens have been executed in the last decade alone. In fact, the Chinese government has been on something of a killing rampage the last three months. According to Amnesty International, more than 1,700 people have been put to death in China during the last 100 days. That's more executions than the entire world managed during the last three years. China has also been accused of selling the organs from executed prisoners for profit.

Why in the world, then, would the IOC vote so enthusiastically to hold the Games in a place like Beijing? Gee, perhaps it was how good the city looked after Chinese officials arrested all the homeless people and dissidents prior to the IOC's inspection tour. Or how they painted many of the housing projects that line the highway between the airport and downtown Beijing -- but only the side viewable from the freeway. (I can't think of a better metaphor for this entire, ugly Olympic scam, can you?)

Maybe, just maybe, it had something to do with the amount of cash potential sponsors would be willing to pay the IOC for the rights to push their products to an untapped market with 1.3 billion customers?

Some say the IOC decided to vote for Beijing in 2008 because the Games could be a much-needed harbinger of change in China. (Just like they were in Berlin and Sarajevo.)

I totally agree.

When the United States boycotts the Beijing Games, that should finally get their attention.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail flemfile@aol.com.