And if those who have nothing to do with Olympic competition were causing such a ruckus in the city by the bay, then the athletes expected to compete at this summer’s Beijing Games must have really been in an uproar.

Not exactly.

“Some people were talking about what’s going on at breakfast, but that’s only because the torch was coming through San Francisco,” Hazle - a former Temple High standout turned javelin thrower and a near lock for the U.S. Olympic team - said Wednesday from Chula Vista. “Until then, I hadn’t heard one word about Tibet from any athlete.”

As the Aug. 8 start date for the games draws nearer and the argument rages on about whether Tibet should be controlled by China, there are activists, political groups and some Olympic committees that are using the Beijing stage to state their views.

Those actions - more than any unrest in Tibet or pollution problems in Beijing - are what draw the ire of athletes, Hazle said.

“The people who are protesting now would protest over anything,” he said. “I heard someone at breakfast say, ‘If the games were in Japan, nobody would give a damn about what’s going on in Tibet.’

“The Olympics are not a political platform. They are about athletics and athletic competition. It’s about everybody sending their best athletes to one spot, then seeing which country comes out on top.”

Hazle, the silver medalist at last year’s Pan American Games, met the Olympic qualifying standard last September at a meet in Spain. Unless something unforeseen occurs, he will be named as an official member of the American delegation for Beijing shortly after the U.S. Olympic Trials end in early July.

It will be the culmination of years of work but not the pinnacle, which will come when he actually steps into the stadium in Beijing.

“It’s another track meet for me, but it’s the biggest track meet in the world,” said Hazle, a 1997 Temple graduate. “It’s the end of four years of training, and we have to be in the best form we have ever been in. We’re so focused on our training that we don’t have time to worry about what people think of Tibet.

“The people who make decisions on boycotts haven’t spent thousands of hours training their bodies for one competition. They don’t take into account the effect that boycotting even the opening ceremonies has on an athlete. And everybody I’ve talked to says they don’t care what anybody says, they’re going to the opening ceremonies.”

Several countries have talked about boycotting the opening ceremonies or the games as a whole. Hazle said the U.S. Olympic Committee won’t be threatening a boycott of any kind, if for no other reason than financial ramifications.

“The majority of the USOC’s money comes from NBC,” Hazle said of the network that holds exclusive rights to televise the games. “If we don’t go, then NBC won’t be writing a check.

“I read that companies have combined to pay something like $1.6 billion to have the Olympic rings tied in with their corporate logo as an official sponsor, and they expect to see U.S. athletes at every function in Beijing. Financially, it’s just not possible to boycott.”

In the last few weeks, most of the talk about boycotting the ceremonies has come from French athletes. But even France’s delegation is split on the issue.

“I have some friends who compete for France,” said Hazle, who garnered a gold medal and two silvers at meets in New Zealand in Australia last month. “Those guys are going to find a way into the opening ceremonies, whether it’s with the French delegation or not.

“That’s a reward for all of the work that the athlete has put in, and you can’t take that away from him.”

More than Tibet, the biggest concern for some athletes could be Beijing’s pollution, which has been measured at five times above the World Health Organization’s standard level.

“(Pollution) worries us more because it effects physical performance,” Hazle said. “But again, you can’t concern yourself with it for too long.

“Everybody will be competing in the same conditions, so you just have to deal with it. Since you can’t control the climate, why waste mental energy complaining about it?”

So while demonstrators rant and rave about various issues, Hazle - ranked 15th in the world and No. 3 on the World Athletics Tour - will spend the next few weeks going through intense training sessions in Chula Vista before returning to competition with meets in Senegal, Brazil, Estonia and Russia before the trials.

Like most athletes, he’s more than content to leave the protesting to other people. He just wishes the activists would find a forum other than the Olympic stage to preach from.

“It’s all about training right now,” Hazle said, “although we did have an informal briefing about what to expect in Beijing. It was things like what’s acceptable at dinner, when to bow and such - mainly things so that we don’t look like jerks or idiots.

“I think worldwide, athletes are so focused on their training that they’re not thinking about all of this other stuff that’s swirling around. If you can show me a guy who is distracted by all of this to the point that he can’t train, then I’ll show you a guy who’s going to get his butt kicked in Beijing.”