Why is Rio Going so Well?
After all the hoopla about the problems Brazil was having getting the Olympics ready, isn’t it amazing how well everything is going? Except for green water in the diving pool, it seems that nothing has gone wrong. Those of us watching on TV see the same old smoothly operating machine, churning through the schedule on time, rolling out the world records and the medalists and the losers, the sob stories and the heartwarming vignettes. Once in a while we might hear a whiff about lineups and polluted water, but that’s all.
What Gives?
Well, three things are going on simultaneously. The first is that the International Olympic Committee and the multi-billion dollar media blitzers don’t want anyone to think that anything could be wrong. They want happy-happy, because that’s what sports fans want. The only people we want to see losing are those on the opposing team. So very little gets reported about the social problems in Brazil and the riots and protests against the Olympics that continue to happen. Once in a while you might see it on a news report, but not on the Olympic networks.
The second point is that the Olympics really are going well. Because the Olympics are not run by Brazil. The Olympics are run by international production companies and sports federations. If the host country can get the accommodations and venues in operational order by startup day, a flood of internationally experienced experts will come in and run the important parts. And everything will flow as it always does (except for, perhaps, the water colour).
Third, we must remember that Rio has a history of absorbing a huge influx of tourists for a short amount of time. They’ve just had a bonus Mardi Gras this year. They can handle it.
So far, the biggest complaint (besides the chlorine in the pool) has been the difficulty of the long-distance bike route, and that isn’t Brazil’s fault. The experts from the International Cycling Union set that course.
I can’t help but remember the lead up to the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, how the British press had a heyday predicting doom and gloom about the traffic, the snow, etc. etc. None of which ever materialized.
Financially?
Same as the third answer above. The economy of the city will go on pretty much as usual, with the big construction companies, hotels and tourist attractions making a pile, some of which will trickle down to the middle class, and almost none of which will reach the people that really need it. Well, perhaps the pickpockets and thieves will have a bonus season. At least Rio is a big tourist city with lots of people with money. Hopefully the new venues will continue to be used, unlike Sarajevo, Sochi, and Athens.
How to Define Success
Which is not to say that putting the Games in Rio was a good idea. But we have to remember that the International Olympic Committee is one of the last vestiges of the old European feudal system. The Games were created by a French aristocrat who had the colonialistic idea that the gentlemen who led the warring countries could take out their aggression on the field of sport instead of the field of battle, and war could be averted. Sort of like medieval jousting tournaments and First Nations lacrosse games, which were held for similar reasons. It wasn’t so long ago that the IOC executive was filled with counts and marquises and Sir This-and-Thats. It’s still a very top-down organization, with plenty of favouritism, nepotism, outright corruption and all those 19th Century bad habits that still cause so much suffering in the world.
Which means that the Olympic Committee doesn’t really care where they hold the Olympics. All they care about is that it costs a huge amount of money to run the organization that fills their stomachs (and their expense accounts) and they need to find a city willing to put the welfare of its citizens on hold while it spends a huge amount of local taxes on improving the city’s international image. Which, in the case of Vancouver, it seemed to do. In the case of Sarajevo, well, you only have to look at the pictures.
But why should the Olympics officials care? You must remember that the old nobility got where they were on the backs of their toiling serfs, and their attitudes, like the attitudes of the billionaire business tycoons who have succeeded them, haven’t changed much. “What’s good for me is good for everyone else. And if it isn’t, that’s their fault.”
Other Problems: The Russian Drug Team
Much though I’d like to see the Russian cheaters slapped down hard, I think the Olympic Committee did the right thing by letting the “clean” athletes in. In the sports sense, the moment you remove a major player, that year’s competition, like 1980 and 1984, immediately becomes a non-Olympics. Medals and records earned will be forever tainted. But the second reason is more persuasive. The difference between a liberal democracy and a dictatorship is human rights. While authoritarians will punish ten innocent people in order to catch one criminal, a democracy will let nine offenders go free to prevent one unjust punishment. Going on the theory that the only way to beat the bullies is to live and prosper, we have to take the high road. If there are any clean athletes in Russia, and we have to assume there are, let’s not punish them for Putin’s ego.
How Successful Have the Olympics Been?
As far as preventing wars, not very. In fact, just like jousting tournaments, various regimes have attempted to use the Olympics as a way of boosting their method of governance and the leaders’ own popularity. Hitler started with Berlin in 1936, and the practice has continued all the way up to Putin with Sochi in 2014. Hitler moved straight into WWII; Putin moved straight into Crimea. So much for Baron de Coubertin’s theories.
The Future
And that’s where it sits at the moment. Leaders and countries will continue to see the Olympics, both the competition and the hosting, as the chance for a huge ego trip, and will continue to pour money into them to the detriment of their populations.
Until we have a real disaster that hurts the pocketbooks of the IOC. Then they will decide to designate certain Olympic cities that are deemed able to do the job, and rotate between them. Of course, the IOC will have to share the profits with these cities, so that will be an equalizing experience. Sooner or later, democracy comes to all institutions.