Independent Olympic Athletes

This year at the London 2012 summer games there are three athletes competing in the Olympics under the Olympic flag as independent athletes. I noticed this while watching the parade of nations at the opening ceremonies. I've been watching the Olympics since 1988, when it was in Calgary, I dont' remember every opening ceremonies, but from what I could remember I hadn't seen that before. I had seen the flag that the Chinese Tiapai, or Taiwan, has used, which has the Olympic rings on it since they can't even compete with their own flag because of the issues between Taiwan and China. So I looked around & from what i can see independent athletes compete for different reasons. Mostly it has to do with the fact that a country is either newly independent and doesn't have an Olympic committee set up yet, but the athletes still qualifiers to compete, or as almost happened in London, the country has it's committee or representation revoked for some reason by the Olympics but their athletes still qualify. It seems to be a way for the Olympics or sometimes international issues to be politically dealt with, while still allowing the athletes to compete.