Fix the Olympics

[jacee]

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4269813

Olympic venues that lie underused after the games is a longstanding problem, and lately hurt the reputation of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

So incredibly wasteful.
This unsustainable one-country spectacle and burden needs to be rethought.

Instead, spread the Olympics over several countries, using existing facilities, or building new facilities that do make sense for long term use for that community.
We can specialize in some sports and maintain those facilities longterm.

And broadcast: When you're watching the Olympics on TV/internet like most of us, it makes no difference whether they're in one country or several.
Easy peasy.

I love the Olympics, but I am now embarrassed about the waste of money and facilities that results from the one-country model for putting on this spectacle. 

I've put this in Local Politics because ultimately, a community hosts events and deals with the aftermath.

Edited September 1, 2017 by jacee

[Boges]

Kind of late to the game here. 

The next two Summer Olympics have been given to cities that already have the facilities for it: Paris and LA. 

Calgary is trying to get the 2026 Winter Olympics, and they, more or less, have the facilities already. 

The 2016 Summer Olympics was effectively the first time the Olympics were put in the developing world. You could see people criticize the IOC for only having this games in Europe, North America and Asia. 

Same with the World Cup. When you have them in places like South Africa, Brazil and Qatar that's when you have problems.

Edited September 1, 2017 by Boges

[jacee]

Lots of countries could participate if sports were distributed.

All in one place doesn't make sense anymore.

 

[Boges]

6 minutes ago, jacee said:

Lots of countries could participate if sports were distributed.

All in one place doesn't make sense anymore.

They do that with World Championships.

The point of the Olympics is having everything in more or less the same place. Joint cities can certainly do it, but they'd have to be fairly close together. 

Only big cities can do this. Rio shouldn't have been given the games. But then again, that's racist isn't it? 

[jacee]

I think it's cumbersome and  unnecessary.

More countries could participate on a smaller more sustainable scale.

It's all the same on TV.

Edited September 1, 2017 by jacee

[WestCoastRunner]

On 2017-09-01 at 5:49 AM, jacee said:

https://www.google.ca/amp/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4269813

Olympic venues that lie underused after the games is a longstanding problem, and lately hurt the reputation of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

So incredibly wasteful.
This unsustainable one-country spectacle and burden needs to be rethought.

Instead, spread the Olympics over several countries, using existing facilities, or building new facilities that do make sense for long term use for that community.
We can specialize in some sports and maintain those facilities longterm.

And broadcast: When you're watching the Olympics on TV/internet like most of us, it makes no difference whether they're in one country or several.
Easy peasy.

I love the Olympics, but I am now embarrassed about the waste of money and facilities that results from the one-country model for putting on this spectacle. 

I've put this in Local Politics because ultimately, a community hosts events and deals with the aftermath.

I too love the Olympics and watch as much of it as I can and I agree with your suggestions. Spreading the events over several countries will help to reduce costs, ensure countries get well needed venues and spread out the security costs. It's a shame that countries are no longer bidding simply because of the costs. 

[Thinkinoutsidethebox]

Personally I don't care for sports let alone the Olympics. That being said it is kinda neat having one country sponsor a get together every once in a while. 

It would be neat to step it down to real amateur athletes and make it far more genuine. Especially if there was a world fair as part of the celebration. 

Maybe there needs to be a cap on spending for events like this so it makes a more level playing field for all nations. It would be really cool if richer nations got together and helped poorer nations sponcor these events.

l also believe the Olympic rings shouldn't be trademarked, it really disappointed me when I heard of police in England forcing small businesses to take anything with the rings out of their storefront windows and off their shelves. It saddens me absolutely everything including national pride needs to have a price. 

I am a bit of a dreamer though 

[OftenWrong]

It used to be an event for amateur athletes but now there's way too much money involved. Olympics has become so elitist, it's practically a rich man's venue, both for spectators and athletes. We got a kid in our town who's into figure skating, and his Mom tells me it costs upwards of $100k a year to keep him involved at the competitive level necessary to qualify.

[taxme]

On 11/11/2017 at 6:04 PM, OftenWrong said:

It used to be an event for amateur athletes but now there's way too much money involved. Olympics has become so elitist, it's practically a rich man's venue, both for spectators and athletes. We got a kid in our town who's into figure skating, and his Mom tells me it costs upwards of $100k a year to keep him involved at the competitive level necessary to qualify.

Why does it have to cost hundreds of millions of dollars to run a sports event? I guess someone has to make some money from for all their efforts? After all, everything in life is all about the money, not the event so much. Just saying. 

[-TSS-]

Wasn't it the Atlanta-olympics in 1996 which have been the only event which was profitable as it was funded by private money only? Yet those olympics have the reputation of being the most boring and soulless games ever.

[?Impact]

What about severely reducing the number of sports instead. While I like the idea of a limited demonstration sport that is relevant for the host country, we seem to have grown away from the basics by including so many different sports in the Olympics. Perhaps we need to get back to athletics, aquatics, cycling, fencing, and gymnastics. Yes I know nobody is aware of fencing, but it has been a staple of every summer Olympics in the modern era. Within those broad disciplines, there is also not the need for so many individual events (e.g. cycling can be track and road, no need for BMX freestyle, BMX racing, and mountain biking). There seemed to be a move a few decades back to reduce the number of disciplines, but it failed miserably because the sports administration bodies simply consolidated and the number of events continued to increase. We need to get back to the order of under 100 events instead of the 300+ we now have.

[Boges]

14 hours ago, ?Impact said:

What about severely reducing the number of sports instead. While I like the idea of a limited demonstration sport that is relevant for the host country, we seem to have grown away from the basics by including so many different sports in the Olympics. Perhaps we need to get back to athletics, aquatics, cycling, fencing, and gymnastics. Yes I know nobody is aware of fencing, but it has been a staple of every summer Olympics in the modern era. Within those broad disciplines, there is also not the need for so many individual events (e.g. cycling can be track and road, no need for BMX freestyle, BMX racing, and mountain biking). There seemed to be a move a few decades back to reduce the number of disciplines, but it failed miserably because the sports administration bodies simply consolidated and the number of events continued to increase. We need to get back to the order of under 100 events instead of the 300+ we now have.

Good luck with that. These sports want to be in the Olympics because they get international exposure. There are sports that we care less about in North America but are huge elsewhere. Netball and Field Hockey come to mind. Why isn't Lacrosse in the Olympics? So many sports. 

I doubt we'll see a third world city like Rio get the Olympics again, just too much for them. The next two are in Paris and LA, both cities that can easily accommodate the Olympics. Also the London and Beijing seemed to go off without a hitch. 

Toronto had a plan to host the 1996 and 2008 Olympics and it was a do-able venture.   

The winter Olympics is the one that's funny because they keep introducing sports to make the 2 weeks busy. 

[PIK]

The olympics is the sport version of the UN, Corrupt to the hilt and both should be abandoned.

[Jayberrd]

Yes