I commented in my blog of May 2012 that I thought our Olympics were profligate. They were more successful than I or anyone expected, but I remain sceptical about the legacy – what legacy? – and above all I am dismayed by the cost. The young are not playing more sport than they did before the event. Some of the expensive structures seem not to have any use now. I remember the names of only two or three of the athIetes. I have read that the cost, £10bn, was covered by extra tourism and business that came in connection with the Games, albeit confined to the London area. But I remain upset that the government could find £10bn for games but cannot find cash for crucial welfare demands and for legal aid, a cause close to my heart. The cuts being made to legal aid amount to £220m, with devastating effect on the system of justice and the lives of the barristers as well as victims. Small change compared to the cost of the Olympics.
But what is even more outrageous is the cost of the Sochi winter games, £31bn. Russia has great poverty, as well as 95 billionaires, one of the greatest wealth disparities of any country in the world. 2000 families were displaced from Sochi with no compensation. In areas close by, there is an unemployment rate of 50%. St Petersburg has only one homeless shelter and 70,000 people sleeping rough every night. The minimum wage is insufficient to meet the cost of living. It was bad enough in the UK to see profligacy in the midst of a recession, but it is far worse in stark terms in Russia. And Putin seems to be spending on fireworks to divert attention from real political problems.
According to the economist Stefan Szymanski, the games have no long term economic benefit for the host country – look at Greece. I agree with Sir Roger Bannister, who suggested that we could avoid all the waste of building new sports stadiums in different countries every four years (and the alleged corruption as the International Olympics Committee makes its royal progression around to choose the next host country) by keeping the games permanently in one country, Greece the obvious choice as the country in which the games originated.
When will this obscene waste on games come to an end? It is about to happen again in Brazil, where there have been riots by protesters against the cost of the 2016 Games and the World Cup. Another country with areas of desperate poverty and a lack of infrastructure, about to spend a fortune on the World Cup and again two years later the Olympics. The Romans summed it up. “Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” “Bread and circuses.”
They have enough trouble with T88888ism when they hold it once in a different place, so how much would they have if they held it in the same place every time?
If an Olympic city were built from scratch away from a centre of population then it could be made security proof perhaps but would it be worth the candle of somebody jumping half a centimetre higher using a funny gait from time to time?
If you wanted to jump a five bar gate, you would get seriously hurt if you did it like that, would you not noble Baroness? There is no meaning to Olympic achievement, and I hope nobody will bring me on to the subject of the way in which participants were clothed in the first days of Olympic achievement of Greek times, centuries ago.
The suggestion was to keep using the facilities built by the Greeks for the Athens games 2004. They might need refurbishing every few years, but security would be easier as it would be a known site. Sadly terrorism is a problem whatever you do and wherever you go nowadays.
The Olympics being held in one country, preferably Greece, where it originated makes perfect sense to all involved.
Why the dissent? Who is benefiting from it being held, preposterously, in country after country for no good reason I can see. Follow the money and find the culprits of this derangement.
With the “Golden Dawn” movement constantly in the wings, I would not give the Olympic movement much chance of winning.
Four years is much too often. Every 12 years would be good, and they wouldn’t have so many daft ‘disciplines’. There are huge vested, profit making, interests, even though government foots the bill, so there’s not much hope of changing it!
Tiddlywinks.
Thinking of the different disciplines in the Olympics and Winter Olympics, the only time I have ever seen Pole Vault, used in a practical daily way, was when Steve McQueen pole vaulted the fence at Colditz, and even that may not have happened, so both High jump and Pole vault are meaningless.
If you take all the Field events (shot/Discus/javelin) as ‘tossing the caber’ a la ecossais, then they are very useful exercise sport events, if you are forester.
The track events are arguably useful to get from one place to the other fast.
The Winter Olympics are something else all together. Why Brits should compete in them at all, is beyond me, considering the opportunities to use them from day to day in these islands, which may be why there has been abject failure in the past, and why the Speed merchants, and ‘skeleton’ toboganists are considered to be crazy. A sense of humor is essential for such games, gold medals or no. You are doing it for the laughter, and the fun of it all, but wasting public money on it, is a great mistake, an extremely expensive exercise in patriotism and nationalistic fervor, of which we get far too much in
the “Sick nations rugby cup”.
@Gareth Howell.
ROTFWL
Strangely, you may feel, I agree wholeheartedly with your post. Get to it Gareth.