The Sochi Olympics are going to be a shitshow. The hotels and player villages are a joke (side-by-side toilets). And the anti-gay legislation and potential violence are also looming The 2014 World Cup is in Brazil is way behind schedule and is looking like a disaster. And then there is the 2022 World Cup planned for Qatar which besides being a hellish landscape in the summer for soccer/football also employs slave labor to complete the stadiums (and there have been hundreds of deaths).
The astounding greed of Britain in hosting them — and wasting £11 billion for a bunch of idiots to run about a field, during a severe depression — a year or so back, when they could have offered the hosting to stricken Greece and given them a few billion as subvention, to boost the home country’s tourism indicates that we too are an awful and incapable country.
Actually yesterday I discovered the whole stupid business was started in Much Wenlock, Salop, England in the 1850s with the Wenlock Olympian Games. I’d be more sympathetic if the modern games included Blindfolded Wheelbarrow Races, *Pig Racing *and Competitive Knitting.
You think giving the Greeks another Olympics would be a gift? Or that Britain made money on them?
Hosting the Olympics benefits nobody but the politicians of the host countries/cities. It’s a massive subsidized ego trip. World Cups are even worse because the only real infrastructure developments are to the stadiums themselves. At least Olympic cities get expanded public transport and such.
Just be glad you don’t also have local politicians giving away your money to finance stadium construction for your local sports teams, like we do in the US.
We could always stop watching and going to these events, thus costing the advertisers and politicians a fortune in lost revenue.
We could. But I’m not going to stop watching Buccaneers games even though they have one of the most ridiculous sweetheart taxpayer stadium funding deals ever.
I did stop watching the Olympics, but mostly because they’re boring.
I think we should simply stop having the Olympics. They’re a concept whose time has come and long since gone.
I’m still really surprised that nothing horrible happened at Beijing.
I agree. “We” should only “give” major sporting events to the good, clean nations who won’t make an embarrassing hash of it. :rolleyes:
In what sense? Is international fellowship dead? Athletic competition? Man’s strife to better himself?
Basically, yes. What’s more important - a World Cup that is functional, safe and hospitable, or what Brazil is going to be?
Well, I didn’t say I liked Greeks.
Nah, they’re fine. Still, considering how badly they are doing, I think the richer countries could do more stuff to help them. If only to stop them blaming the Germans, which is so 1940s.
I am more than aware than those people who bankrolled it wasted government money at the same time as they cut welfare and infrastructure. It’s just that the latest bidders I recently heard promised to do the next one for about $4 billion, whereas our lot being smug boastful blowhards insisted on splurging £11 billion for pride.
Maybe, just maybe. Looking the the Wenlock Olympics, I found this, which showed that 91% of souvenirs were made elsewhere, mostly China. So I’m dubious as to benefits. People said it broke even — had they dumped £11 billion on any non-capital city to increase manufacturing, it might be denounced as command economy subsidizing, but it would at least make a bigger return.
Why Sochi anyway? It’s the Russian Riviera, the place they go when they’re sick of freezing. If they’re going to have the Winter Olympics in Russia, why not someplace further north, like St. Petersburg or Moscow?
I sort of agree. From my understanding, World Championships are given greater kudos than the Olympic Games by the athletes themselves. The OG are more a social event, and whilst it’s nice to get a medal and have the whole world watching, from a professional point of view it’s the WC’s that will advance your career, not so much the OG’s.
I think the Olympics in their current form are just a money-grabbing waste of everybody’s time and energy and money. The whole notion of bidding for the rights to host them, right through to the funneling of taxpayer’s dollars into building essentially wasteful and superfluous arenas and accommodations. It lines the pockets of politicians, Olympic committee members and major construction companies, and does little for the average resident Joe of that city except cause a huge headache getting around.
What I would like to see is a permanent venue for the Games, in Greece, with all the participating countries providing funding to build and maintain the structures and services. It would take the big bucks out of the Games, and bring the focus back to the original purpose: showcasing the very best in athletics and sportsmanship the world has to offer.
So is Brazil awful or incompetent?
We’ll see. The word so far isn’t very encouraging. I’m leaning towards incompetent/corrupt.
Deadspin has some hysterical tweets from reporters about the conditions in Sochi.
These games are going to be fun!
Any time a city is announced to host the Olympics I think “so they paid the most bribes and had the best drugs for the evaluation committee, good for them.”
Sort of like the original Olympic site.
Works for me. One winter site, one summer site.
You could pick a different country to ‘host’ it at that venue, they could bid for that instead of for plunking it down in their country. Great for differing designing firms to do medals, uniforms, flags and the peripheral stuff. The money bid for the right to call ones selves hosting country could go towards upkeep and redecoration/updating of equipment and facilities instead of building all new facilities every 4 years.
Don’t forget, the World Cup between the ones in Brazil and Qatar will be in Russia, too. I’m sure nothing will go wrong, though, just like nothing will go wrong in Sochi.
There is fear and jibbering about how every Olympic Games held is going to be a farce, and then it all turns out OK. Partly (and at this point in the cycle) it’s because a huge media army turns up a few days before the games and they have to file stories, and there are no stories yet. So they find things to whine about.
Having said that, I think the Olympics are inherently broken but that’s another issue.
Shhh… Don’t mention the War!