Glad to see Vancouver doesnt show in any of these articles. It can be done well enough. Nobody seems to have any great complaints about those games (2010). The facilities are still in regular use ... which one would expect of a winter games in canada.
Post-Olympic Abandonment
91–100 of 158 posts
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#92Rio is a bad place to look at. The place is broken for the same reason its last 3 governors are on jail (and older ones have been there), not because it hosted the Olympics last year. I don't think the ROI was positive, but I also don't think that level of abandonment will last.
Hey, at least they're in jail.
Yep. I do personally have the opinion that the World Cup and Olympics were worth much more than their cost just by the fact that they bankrupted every kind of government here and pressed the people into revolting.
I estimate they were the hightest ROI project our government ever had when considered that indirect gain.
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#93Why not just have one venue, but have different hosts organise the opening ceremony? Stick one large venue on an island somewhere, and then hand the responsibility of running it to a different nation each time.
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#94Would it negatively impact the Olympics if we stopped rotating them at this point? I mean, besides the IOC missing out on the opportunity compete with FIFA on graft? Let's just locate the Olympics in a permanent facility -- Greece, if they'll have them, for tradition. I think between "not rebuilding everything from scratch every four years" and the expectation of recurring events, the single host country could both r…
Olympics was about bringing the world together.
I would say it fails today, because now most troubled countries don't care about sport. But anyway, permanent location for Olympics will defeat that idea for good and will turn Olympics into a completely worthless consumerism fest.
Maybe just make them cheaper?
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#95Glad to see Vancouver doesnt show in any of these articles. It can be done well enough. Nobody seems to have any great complaints about those games (2010). The facilities are still in regular use ... which one would expect of a winter games in canada.
The facilities from the '88 games (Calgary) are similarly still actively used for training and by the public.
edit: '88 not '86
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lake Placid, NY still uses the Olympic venues. A lot of winter athletes train there.
And, fun fact, the Olympic village is now a prison: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Correctional_Instituti...
Another fun fact: those dorms were specifically designed for easy conversion into a prison. Apparently the athletes were not super thrilled.
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
You could do that or you could just keep it at the same facility for, say, 20 years and THEN move it. So a country could get a 20-year economic boost (hopefully, at least long-term) and at least re-use the facilities a few times
I think any boom would be short lived. The travel novelty would grow thin. The repeated use of the same facilities would also impact the sports. More fundimental is the question of any boom. London didnt see much, with some shops downtown instead seeing marked reductions. Vancouver barely broke even. China didnt do it for the money. And the less said about Sochi's costs the better.
> London didnt see much
Part of it is on the verge of being converted into a cement factory (https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/aug/11/olympic-park...)
Honestly believe a world without the Olympic games is a better world, if London can't find much use for them and Rio is already letting them fall into disrepair. What on earth is the point in this.
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#98Would it negatively impact the Olympics if we stopped rotating them at this point? I mean, besides the IOC missing out on the opportunity compete with FIFA on graft? Let's just locate the Olympics in a permanent facility -- Greece, if they'll have them, for tradition. I think between "not rebuilding everything from scratch every four years" and the expectation of recurring events, the single host country could both r…
So Greece, for example, becomes responsible for the maintenance and updates to the facilities, which they obviously can't afford now? Having a single host country works only if all the participating countries chip in annually according to their GNP or some other measure of their financial worth. How, then, is that enforced? You can always exclude those countries who are in arrears but that only harms the athletes. Fo…
> Either that or the world class athletes would relocate to a wealthy nation, sending yet another blow to their home country.
This already happens but for other reasons. Some athletes will move to a country that underperforms in the Olympics for their sport so they can qualify easier.
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#99I like to think that Barcelona is a good example of how Olympic Games should impact a city. Growth was controlled and it allowed for regeneration of some shady parts of the city. They didn't build crazy venues and the ones they did build are still in use today 25 years later.
I fully agree with this. Barcelona is one of the best examples as for how the Olympic games can help. London is a great example, but in London is easy to use the large venues. Barcelona was more challenging and they made well.
> London is a great example
The area was regenerating itself just fine. As someone who lives in it long before the games. The olympics did nothing for the area and it's now partly going to be host to a cement factory, thanks Olympics.
Re: Post-Olympic Abandonment
#100It seems to me that the countries that maintained their Olympic facilities (England, Australia, US, Norway, Germany, China) all tilt to the wealthier end of the spectrum. Conversely, the poorer ones, Brazil and Greece, really couldn't afford hosting the games in the first place, let alone maintaining the venues afterwards. These days, its the wealthier countries that turn down the offer to host because of the costs w…
Judging by the bidding history from recent years, wealthier countries are still very keen to host. Spain, Japan, Germany, the US and other rich countries have all made repeated bids to host.
I think the IOC like to give the games to poorer countries like Brazil and China because it helps to spread the Olympic "brand", and encourage interest and participation in more parts of the world. Or maybe its just because poorer countries provide more opportunities for graft.
If the IOC are serious about fixing this issue, they should:
1. Require all bidding cities to have the necessary non-sporting infrastructure in place before making an official bid.
E.g. You can propose to build stadiums and athlete villages as part of the bidding process, but not extend metros, clear slums, build highways, etc.
There could be a rolling programme whereby the IOC evaluates potential host cities and determines whether they meet the eligibility requirements.
2. Require and enforce strict cost controls on each bid, relative to the potential host country's finances. E.g. the bid cannot exceed a particular % of the country's GDP, or involve incurring national debt beyond a certain level.
3. Conduct regular reviews into the progress and cost of preparations for hosting. In the event of safety problems or significant cost overruns, the venue should be switched. Every Games should have a contingency plan for hosting a cut-down version in a country with existing infrastructure, if the actual host proves unable to meet the promises and estimates made during the bidding process.