MADRID: US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has rejected calls for a boycott of the Beijing Olympics because of China's crackdown on protests in Tibet.

Pelosi during a visit to Spain said that ''I am not in favour of a boycott of the Olympic Games. The Olympic Games are a sporting event,''

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday refused to rule out an eventual boycott of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on August 8 if China refuses to open a dialogue with the Dalai Lama on Tibet.

During a visit to India last week Pelosi made the first high-level call on the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader after anti-Chinese protests led to violent clashes between Tibetans and Chinese police on March 14.

''If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against China's oppression in Tibet, we have lost our moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world,'' the Democratic leader said.

China called Pelosi a ''defender of arsonists, looters and killers'' after she visited the Dalai Lama and criticized Chinese ''oppression'' in Tibet in a commentary about her trip to Dharamshala published by a Chinese news agency.