# Why didn't the IOC strip Rio's of its right to host the Olympic Games **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 7, 2016, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003 "2016-08-07T01:10:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2016, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/21 "2016-08-07T21:07:30Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > When the preparations for Athens 2004 seemed to be well behind program, there was a rumour that Sydney would be asked to reprise its 2000 hosting role. Almost certainly a media beat-up fuelled by the desire to remain ‘the best Olympics ever’, but possibly feasible because all the infrastructure was still in place… All the [infrastructure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17NKos-7GCo)? ---
**Author:** ![Banksiaman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banksiaman/32/3334_2.png) [@Banksiaman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banksiaman)\ **Post date:** [August 7, 2016, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/22 "2016-08-07T21:44:42Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > All the [infrastructure](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17NKos-7GCo)? I cracked open the box set recently and have been thoroughly enjoying the parallels of The Games and real life Rio preparations. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/23 "2016-08-08T00:55:02Z")
> [@Banksiaman](#): > > I cracked open the box set recently and have been thoroughly enjoying the parallels of The Games and real life Rio preparations. “A long-necked waddle for peace?” In four years I’m confident you’ll be able to watch it again and see the parallels with the Tokyo preparations. ---
**Author:** ![notfrommensa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f14d63/32.png) [@notfrommensa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/notfrommensa)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/24 "2016-08-08T02:05:26Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Heard a piece on NPR today about some of the difficulties the ancient games had … some of that shit makes Brazil look like a dream come true … Can you elaborate? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/25 "2016-08-08T02:25:06Z")
The obvious solution is to choose a permanent Olympic site. With all the countries contributing to maintaining it. It could be used to host many amateur and pretrial Olympic events too. Where? Doesn’t matter too me. Any stable country that’s willing to do it works for me. ---
**Author:** ![USCDiver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uscdiver/32/354_2.png) [@USCDiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/USCDiver)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/26 "2016-08-08T02:28:38Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > The United States wouldn’t need more than a couple weeks. Just add the trillions of dollars to the debt, it’d be worth it to rub everyone else’s nose in it. Unlike the World Cup, the Olympics are hosted by a single City not by a Country. The US could convert a handful of football stadia into soccer fields and slap together a World Cup at the last minute, but for a single city to be able to piece together a LARGE track & field stadium, swimming/diving, cycling, gymnastics, handball, archery, kayaking, etc with their spectator areas is impossible without considerable time. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 2:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/27 "2016-08-08T02:32:58Z")
Plus you would need thousands of hotel rooms (10,000 athletes, 5,000 judges, referees and so forth, and thousands of spectators from all over the world). The media need a lot of space and the time to set up their equipment. Plus a month later you have to host the Paralympics. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/28 "2016-08-08T04:07:24Z")
I think you’d find that with the requirements listed by the OP for a country to qualify for the Olympics you’d only have half a dozen countries that could actually host, Heck if “abusive police force” was a show stopper I’m sure many would say the USA couldn’t host any. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/29 "2016-08-08T04:52:56Z")
> [@watchwolf49](#): > > Money … the losses would have been staggering … has there been any serious problems with the competitions yet? Has any Olympic host city actually made a profit from the Olympics. Rio is shelling out a hell of a lot more than it’s making. But that aside I do understand the prestige attached to being selected. I’m not even sure Rio laid all its cards on the table when it applied. All cities probably fudge a little. Did the IOC just want to give it to a S. A country? How much does bias play a role? What are IOC criteria? ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/30 "2016-08-08T05:06:05Z")
> [@drewder](#): > > I think you’d find that with the requirements listed by the OP for a country to qualify for the Olympics you’d only have half a dozen countries that could actually host, Heck if “abusive police force” was a show stopper I’m sure many would say the USA couldn’t host any. I think you’ll find things are far worse in Brazil. > **[The story of Brazil's killer cops](https://www.gq-magazine.co.uk/article/brazil-killer-cops)** > > Street-level war has now spread to every city, as civilians and criminals alike face deadly injustice at the hands of the police. Death squads comprising off-duty police officers and other members of the state security forces have long been a feature of the criminal ecosystems of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. There is increasing evidence that such groups operate elsewhere in Brazil - and it’s only getting worse. > **[Brazil police may be to blame for 35 execution-style killings over weekend](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/22/manaus-brazil-homicides-amazon)** > > Manaus city officials admit police death squads may have been responsible; alternative theory links killings to prison murder of a senior gang leader Newspaper reports indicate that the bullets used in many of the weekend killings in Manaus were the same calibre used by the police. The attorney general of the state of Amazonas (MPE-AM), Fabio Monteiro, said the evidence pointed to the existence of a death squad. ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/31 "2016-08-08T05:11:25Z")
> **[Are the Olympics a non-profit?](https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Olympics-a-non-profit)** > > Answer (1 of 3): The International Olympic Committee, United States Olympic Committee and the Olympic Committees for most other countries are strictly non-profit. However, the games themselves can be a profitable event for the host city. > Los Angeles... "Los Angeles was the first city to gain a profit from the Olympics in 1984. " ---
**Author:** ![davidmich](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e56c9b/32.png) [@davidmich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/davidmich)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/32 "2016-08-08T05:15:02Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > [https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Olympics-a-non-profit](https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Olympics-a-non-profit) > > "Los Angeles was the first city to gain a profit from the Olympics in 1984. " > **[Rio 2016: Economists question wisdom of hosting Olympics](https://www.cnbc.com/2016/08/04/rio-olympics-2016-economists-question-wisdom-of-hosting-olympics.html)** > > Rio is unlikely to receive a good return on its investment to host the Olympics, with some economists warning of a "catastrophe." Very revealing article and video "Things were very different in Brazil in October 2009, when Rio beat Tokyo, Madrid and Chicago to win the right to host the 2016 Summer Games. “There was absolutely no flaw in the bid,” then-IOC president Jacques Rogge said at the time. Brazil made a convincing, emotional case for its right to hold the Games – the world’s premier sporting event had never been held in South America – and its economy showed plenty of promise. The country had emerged from recession and was on its climb back to the 7.5 percent economic growth it recorded in 2010; inflation was below the central bank’s target; and the real was strong, which helped Brazil’s Índice Bovespa become the world’s best performing stock market in 2009, surging a gravity-defying 145 percent in dollar terms. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/33 "2016-08-08T13:04:06Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > Given the the state of affairs in Brazil, be it its abusive police force or generally appalling economy/political scene, why didn’t the IOC strip Rio’s of its award to host the Olympic Games months ago and choose a runner-up? Was it too late? Yeah, it was too late. Brazil was a substantially different place in 2009 than it is today, and you can’t change this decision once you’ve gone down the road a good distance. No one in 2009 predicted Brazil would be a basket base by 2016. The country was on an upswing. [QUOTE=davidmich] Did the IOC just want to give it to a S. A country? How much does bias play a role? What are IOC criteria? [/QUOTE] The IOC has few clear or unambiguous criteria; scheduling is a big deal though, as the Games will ideally always take place in the Northern summer (Doha wanted to big for this Olymics but were shot down because they wanted to hold them in October.) The host city is who it is, based on a wide range of factors, and some of the factors are, without any doubt or question, bribes. Obviously, it is the general desire of the IOC to move the Games around, which is why they’ve not held them on the same continent twice in a row since and having South America finally host a Games was a big deal. IF you look at the voting for who was going to honst the 2016 Games, you see the antipathy towards having it on the same continent twice in a row: Round 1: Madrid 28, Rio de Janiero 26, Tokyo 22, Chicago 18 Round 2: Rio de Janiero 46, Madrid 29, Tokyo 20 Round 3: Rio de Janiero 66, Madrid 32 In the first round there is really no favourite at all. But in every subsequent round all the Tokyo and Chicago supported move into the Rio camp. Madrid is a lovely city but it’s in Europe, which is where the 2012 Games were about to be held. Holding two straight Summer Games on the same continent has not happened since 1952 and it is unlikely it’ll ever happen. But then you’ve got the problem of having cities to choose from. The 2022 Winter Games will be on the same continent as the 2018 Winter Games because no one else wanted them. The same problem may someday beset the Summer Games. It has before - the 1984 Summer Games were held is Los Angeles because it was the only city that bothered to do so, which is one of the reasons they made money off it. ---
**Author:** ![Jim\_s\_Son](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e19adc/32.png) [@Jim\_s\_Son](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jim_s_Son)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/34 "2016-08-08T18:49:34Z")
> [@notfrommensa](#): > > Can you elaborate? I don’t know about the NPR report and never heard of this site, but here is an article about some of the problems they had in Ancient Greece. > **[The ancient Olympics were dirty, violent, corrupt affairs. There was even...](https://theworld.org/stories/2016/08/05/if-you-thought-rio-was-bad-check-out-ancient-olympics)** > > The ancient Greeks staged games every four years, for over a thousand years, on the field of Olympia. Times were rough, and so was the competition.The ancient Greeks staged games every four years, for over a thousand years, on the field of Olympia.... In 67 AD the Emperor Nero bribed officials to bring home the gold and show the Greeks that Rome was still number one. > **[Nero](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero#Public_performances)** > > Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (/ˈnɪəroʊ/ NEER-oh; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68) was a Roman emperor and the final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 until his death in AD 68. > Nero was born at Antium in AD 37, the son of Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Agrippina the Younger (great-granddaughter of the emperor Augustus). Nero was three when his father died. By the time Nero turned eleven, his mother married Emperor Claudiu... ---
**Author:** ![kurtisokc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bbce88/32.png) [@kurtisokc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kurtisokc)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2016, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/35 "2016-08-08T20:27:36Z")
> [@davidmich](#): > > [https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Olympics-a-non-profit](https://www.quora.com/Are-the-Olympics-a-non-profit) > > "Los Angeles was the first city to gain a profit from the Olympics in 1984. " Los Angeles claims to have also made a profit off the 1932 games, [1932 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1932_Summer_Olympics). I came a Wikipedia article that lists the financials for most of the olympics held since 1948, [Cost of the Olympic Games - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games). However, besides being incomplete I think the profit-loss figures in particular should be taken with a grain of salt, since they may not account for some of the infrastructure spending or other indirect expenses. By the way, the Russian government claims that the Sochi games made a profit, [https://www.rt.com/business/sochi-olympics-income-exceed-908/](https://www.rt.com/business/sochi-olympics-income-exceed-908/), though I don’t give that claim much credibility. ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/36 "2016-08-10T03:47:25Z")
I would think if you were to choose two cities to be permanent hosts Salt Lake would need to be the place for the winter Olympics and possibly LA or Atlanta for Summer ---
**Author:** ![drewder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/57b2e6/32.png) [@drewder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewder)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003/37 "2016-08-10T03:54:00Z")
Actually Charlotte would be perfect for the Summer games. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-didnt-the-ioc-strip-rios-of-its-right-to-host-the-olympic-games/762003.md?page=1)