Badges showing Mao's profile were worn by hundreds of millions of people in the 1960s to show their loyalty to the Communist Party chairman and the ultra-radical Cultural Revolution he launched in 1966.
China's current party chief, Xi Jinping, has invoked Mao’s image as he tries to promote his own status as a history-making Chinese leader.
At a July 1 event, Xi appeared on Tiananmen Square in central Beijing in a gray Mao jacket identical to one worn by the former leader in a nearby portrait overlooking the square. Other party leaders at the same event dressed in blue business suits.
The IOC has publicized its president Thomas Bach's regular calls with Xi ahead of the Beijing Olympics opening in February, which human rights activists have tried to brand the “Genocide Games” because of the government's treatment of Muslim minority Uyghur people in China's northwest.
At a Tokyo Olympics, where athlete activists were expected to draw attention, Saunders pushed at the limits of Rule 50 by crossing her wrists to make the shape of an X. ”It’s the intersection of where all people who are oppressed meet,” Saunders said when asked to explain it.
Saunders turned toward photographers at the Olympic Stadium to make the gesture seconds after she stood facing the Chinese flag during the national anthem playing for Gong Lijiao. The U.S. Olympic body is taking no action against Saunders, who it said late Monday “was respectful of her competitors and did not violate our rules related to demonstration.“
The IOC has asked U.S. team officials for more details, Adams said Tuesday, adding it noted public opinion in the case. There has been wide support for Saunders, who is Black and gay.
Saunders said at the Olympic track her aim was “to show younger people that no matter how many boxes they try to fit you in, you can be you and you can accept it."
The IOC has long claimed it is politically neutral and must maintain that stance to allow more than 200 national teams to arrive and compete at an Olympic Games as equals. Still, the rule prohibiting all athlete protests in Olympic venues was eased slightly in the weeks before the opening ceremony in Tokyo where athletes were expected to test its limits.
Gestures and statements are now allowed inside the field of play at the start line or before a game, though not during competition or at medal ceremonies. Several women's soccer teams, for example, kneeled on the field before kickoff on the first day of Olympic action on July 21.
The Mao pins, though, were an unexpected twist on the Rule 50 debate. The wearing of such badges declined after 1970 due to complaints producing them used up scarce supplies of metal required by Chinese industry.
The original Cultural Revolution-era ones are sought after by collectors, both in China and in the West.
Mao images became popular again in the 1990s to express complaints that ordinary Chinese gained too little from wrenching economic changes that caused inflation and layoffs at state companies. (AP)