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Russia's Olympic Doping Case Helps China Skirt Dicey Topics

• Little more than a week ago, the questions from non-Chinese reporters at daily Olympics briefings were about sensitive things involving China -- tennis player Peng Shuai, the government's treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the northwest, the efficiency of the anti-COVID "closed-loop system."
  
  These days, they're all about a drug scandal -- the one with Russia at the center -- and not much else.
  
  The doping saga unfolding around Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva has been a Games-changer at the Beijing Olympics, pushing aside dicey topics that Chinese officials like to avoid answering.
  
  "The big winner in the Valieva scandal is the Chinese government," Olympic historian David Wallechinsky said in an email. He has been a consistent critic of China's government and stayed away from these Games, his first Olympic absence since 1988.
  
  "What a relief for them to not have to fend off comments about human rights," Wallechinsky quipped.