With a year and a day until the start of the Beijing Olympic Games, plans are being put in place for the biggest peaceful political demonstration by international athletes ever staged.

Sportspeople are not exactly synonymous with global altruism but a year from now, when a medal-winner in Beijing is afforded their moment at the microphone to address the world, they will talk not of personal fulfilment or the love and support of their parents or endorsement deals, but of Darfur and how the involvement of China is fuelling the genocide.

Joey Cheek, who is behind the campaign, hopes to have 1,000 athletes bearing that message as they fly to the Games. Imagine that: medal-winners all over the Olympic city talking about their Olympic hosts, arms and oil trading with Sudan and the deaths of more than 200,000 people.

Unlikely? Yes, Cheek concedes, “but we’re Olympians, we’re used to attempting the impossible”.

Cheek is an American speed-skater who won a gold medal at the Turin Olympics last year but claimed far more media space for what he did in his press conference afterwards. He chose not to talk about his achievement — “I love what I do”, he said. “But it’s honestly a pretty ridiculous thing. I skate round the ice in tights, right?” — and talked about Darfur. He donated his $25,000 (about £13,000) medal bonus to a charity for Darfur refugees and he challenged other athletes and sponsors to follow suit.

A fortnight ago, he presented a 40,000-name petition to the Chinese Embassy in Washington DC calling on China to help to save Darfur’s civilian population. Those 40,000 were not Olympians, but it is to Olympians that his focus has turned.

His potential success hangs heavily on two issues. First, the Olympic charter is clear that the Games are for sport, not politics, and that the Games are not the place for demonstrations. Secondly, Darfur is only one of myriad human rights issues that will dog Beijing through to the closing ceremony. Tomorrow, to mark the “one year to go” date, expect demonstrations from Amnesty International and the International Campaign for Tibet. Other campaigners who will surface in the next year include suppressed religious groups, Taiwanese independence seekers, unemployed workers, farmers fighting land confiscations and environmentalists combating global warming, to name a few.

As one news agency put it: “The run-up to next summer’s Olympics in Beijing is looking like a marathon through a human-rights minefield.”

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) may be requiring some agile footwork, too. Its take is clear: that it is not a political pressure group and that it is not its role to push for change in Darfur, Tibet or wherever. As Giselle Davies, an IOC official, said: “Holding the Olympics in Beijing allows a spotlight to be shone on issues that fall outside sport, thereby engendering important debate. The IOC welcomes this. Organised sport can help to bring positive developments from within Olympic Games host countries.” Yet the question that will be asked throughout the year, especially during the Games, is: what positive developments?

An early answer comes today in a “one year to go” report from Amnesty International that argues that, on human rights, negative developments overshadow any positive steps and that “the Olympics are being used to justify such repression in the name of ‘harmony’ or ‘social stability’ rather than acting as a catalyst for reform”.

For Cheek, China’s record on human rights, and Darfur especially, is a direct clash with the Olympic ideal. “By hosting the Olympics, China is looking for something, their coronation on the world stage, if you like,” he said. “But I don’t believe you can have the afterglow with these other issues running concurrently.

“You can’t say you are for brotherhood and peace and for everyone to be able to pursue their dreams — which you are when you are hosting an Olympics — and have Darfur at the same time.”

Recent developments on Darfur — the United Nations resolution to send a peacekeeping force — do not convince him that the lives of the Sudanese are safe or that the force will be anything more than witness to the status quo. “There was a resolution last year, too,” he said. “I am continuing under the assumption that things are not going to be different.”

For the moment, that means preparing for an official launch at the end of this month and continuing to recruit potential Olympians to a cause that has taken root in the Netherlands, Germany, Canada, Japan and the United States. The campaign and website are entitled “Where will we be?” Cheek said: “The idea is that this time next year the eyes of the world will be on the athletes in Beijing. But we want to know where the people of Sudan and Darfur will be.”

He is not the first to direct the Olympics to this cause. Mia Farrow, the actress, is a Unicef goodwill ambassador and described Beijing 2008 as “The Genocide Olympics”. And Steven Spielberg, the film-maker who has been appointed the Games’ artistic director, said Darfur is forcing him to consider resigning from the post.

But now it is Olympians attempting to use the Olympics to force change. Can they do it? “I know what a grand mission this is,” Cheek said. “But if I didn’t believe it was possible, I wouldn’t be trying.”

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