It might seem a long way away, but as fasting season has ended for us all, for the many Muslim Athletes who are training for the 2012 Olympic Games in London, concern has grown about their participation at the Games in six years.

The Olympic Committee said it was deeply concerned after the realisation that the timing of the summer event may fall during Ramadan, the holy month for Muslims when they fast from sun rise to to sundown.

One British Muslim leader said that, for the expected 3,000 Muslim Olympic athletes, it was like scheduling the Winter Games on Christmas.

Togay Bayalti, president of Turkey’s Olympic Committee, voiced his country’s opposition, saying it would have been “nice for the friendship of the Games if they had chosen a different date.”

In the UK, where Muslim integration is at an all time low and a major political and social issue, the apparently poor planning will come as an embarrassment to the organisers, especially because a spokesman acknowledged that the committee has known all along about the conflict, but never mentioned it.

Religious considerations have long been a part of scheduling sports events, most famously when Eric Liddle, a Scottish Christian runner, refused to run a qualifying heat in the 1924 Olympics because it was on a Sunday.

The 2012 Games are scheduled for July 27 to August 12, while Ramadan (which follows a lunar cycle that moves it earlier each year by about 11 days) will run from July 21 to August 20.

The 2012 Games are seen as a prime opportunity for rapprochement between white Britain and its growing Muslim population, and indeed all its ethnic minorities.

Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, of the Muslim Council of Great Britain, released a statement saying, “I’m sure the athletes will seek advice from their scholars. They are obviously going to be at a disadvantage because other competitors will be drinking and keeping up their energy levels. But they are athletes, and I am sure they will train their bodies to cope with this.”