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International Events VI: Glorious Anarchy and Chaos!


TheLastWolf

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Is there any reason why in this modern world the Olympics cant be hosted by event?  A quick search tells me there are 28 events this year- why not have cities bid on a single sport and make it a truly international competition?  A single sport's worth of infrastructure should be readily available across the globe without needing to impact local citizenry in a major way.  A few like Football might require a larger city/region, but certainly not the headache of the whole event.  (many more) Locals get the 'international spirit', the broadcast networks get their $$$ and would have a 24 hour live content feed, and it would also reduce the advantage in the sport of the 'host nation' at least at the macro level.  Moreover, if a smaller country like, say Iceland, wanted to host Curling or whatever, they get to participate in a way that would never be feasible with the whole thing.  Perhaps just have the torch 'run' through the host cities and then bring it back to Greece as a nod to its origination. 

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4 hours ago, Padraig said:

But obviously Brisbane can manage it too.  But Australians do love their sport, so they must have a lot of facilities in place too.

Brisbane hosted the Commonwealth games in 2018, they built a new velodrome, upgraded stadiums etc - and since then a lot of the national competitions have moved up there to take advantage of the relatively new facilites. They're saying they have approx 85% already built. It's 10 years out so things will need an upgrade, but looks like much of it is already being utilised and will continue to be post olympics.

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4 hours ago, horangi said:

Is there any reason why in this modern world the Olympics cant be hosted by event?  A quick search tells me there are 28 events this year- why not have cities bid on a single sport and make it a truly international competition?  A single sport's worth of infrastructure should be readily available across the globe without needing to impact local citizenry in a major way.  A few like Football might require a larger city/region, but certainly not the headache of the whole event.  (many more) Locals get the 'international spirit', the broadcast networks get their $$$ and would have a 24 hour live content feed, and it would also reduce the advantage in the sport of the 'host nation' at least at the macro level.  Moreover, if a smaller country like, say Iceland, wanted to host Curling or whatever, they get to participate in a way that would never be feasible with the whole thing.  Perhaps just have the torch 'run' through the host cities and then bring it back to Greece as a nod to its origination. 

Yes, there is. The idea is to showcase all of the sports equally, regardless whetehr it's something mainstream likesay Basketball or track and field events, or really something niche like this synchornized/artistic swimming. It would lead to less marketable sports simply falling by the wayside. Hell, I think even the traditional wrestling tournament, which is one of the oldest competitons, was (or is?) in danger of getting axed from the Olympics. It's probably even more extreme with the winter olympics. The most marketable event there is undoubtedly the mens' hockey tournament, next down the line is then probably something like figure skating (not my thing, but it's apparently quite popular). I don't think anybody really cares for stuff like Curling. This coming together of all kinds of athletes sharing the same stage is really one of the few saving graces for the Olympics.

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6 hours ago, Week said:

...

Week: “That boy is our last hope.” 

Yoda: "No. There is another.”

-_- Phew. 

Im not really going to become a politician. Though I couldn't understand your post. Not the Star Wars and Yoda part. Where do you and I fit in? Am I the hopeless one, or the other or not even in it? Confused. And you'd be cool as Obi Wan Ig

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5 hours ago, horangi said:

Is there any reason why in this modern world the Olympics cant be hosted by event?  A quick search tells me there are 28 events this year- why not have cities bid on a single sport and make it a truly international competition?

I've never understood why they couldn't do this, or even just award it to a country and have the games in different cities.  I remember during the Atlanta Olympics - when I was 11 - I was confused as to why they weren't holding events in different cities across the US.

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2 hours ago, DMC said:

I've never understood why they couldn't do this, or even just award it to a country and have the games in different cities.  I remember during the Atlanta Olympics - when I was 11 - I was confused as to why they weren't holding events in different cities across the US.

They actually are supposed to be doing this.  The below quote was included in a link from earlier.

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The IOC wants to invite potential candidate cities to present an Olympic project that best matches their sports, economic, social and environmental long-term planning needs. This will also allow host cities to spread their bid over state or national borders.

Now, i'm not sure whether cities are taking advantage of this.  LA and Paris probably wouldn't need it.  And I wouldn't know the geography of Japan well enough to know whether they have spread events around.  Certainly not the biggest anyhow.

9 hours ago, Rippounet said:

This is incorrect. Profit was made, indeed, but very rarely by the host cities (nor does wikipedia claim that).

That sounds fair.   While I was aware of the LA situation for years, I was a little surprised by the other figures.  I thought somebody would add more info.

But its the kind of reforms that have been suggested here is why I'm confident that the Olympics will be fine.  It is in the IOC's interests to make it worthwhile for bidders to emerge.   So they will ensure it keeps on happening.  Which should be good for future host cities, as they are less likely to be foisted with debt and good for athletes, as there will always be a desire for the best of athletes to compete with each other.

4 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

This coming together of all kinds of athletes sharing the same stage is really one of the few saving graces for the Olympics.

Yes.  I'd agree with this.  Every event has their own World Championship already, scattered all over the place (although, obviously not on at the same time).  We don't need another one of those.  The Olympics is supposed to be a celebration of some of our best and boldest.  In our cynical times (when mediocrity can be celebrated), it is difficult for anything to be viewed positively but the idea remains a fine one.

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1 hour ago, Padraig said:

They actually are supposed to be doing this.  The below quote was included in a link from earlier.

Now, i'm not sure whether cities are taking advantage of this.  LA and Paris probably wouldn't need it.  And I wouldn't know the geography of Japan well enough to know whether they have spread events around.  Certainly not the biggest anyhow.

Apparently Paris 2024 is holding the surfing in Tahiti, it's hard to get more of a geographical spread than that. 

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The Olympic village is still a thing. Not really a village anymore, though, with 15,000 inhabitants. Some events have to be held outside the host city, like sailing. Road cycling saw the time trials at the Fuji racetrack. The road races started in Tokyo but ended on the Fuji track. I think football (soccer) is spread over multiple cities as you need more than one stadium for a tournament.

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4 hours ago, williamjm said:

Apparently Paris 2024 is holding the surfing in Tahiti, it's hard to get more of a geographical spread than that. 

Wow.  I didn't even know Tahiti was part of France. :)

I had to get more info.  Apparently Tahiti has world renowned waves.  And the athletes can come to Paris after the competition if they wish (and stay in the athlete's village).  There were venues on the mainland that were interested in hosting the event but I suppose if you want to give the athletes a chance against the best waves...there is logic there.  And presumably the French wanted to involve all parts of their country in the competition (and spread the investment).

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1091410/tahiti-approved-ioc-paris-2024-surfing

So ok, Paris at least is taking advantage of the rule changes.

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2 hours ago, L'oiseau français said:

Burn in hell, screamed Canada!

”shakes fist at the savage”

Just like the Brits when they looked at places to allow vaccinated visitors to enter, I don't think I've missed anything significant. :leaving:

On a second thought, I couldn't possibly think of anything more Canadian than cleaning a piece of frozen water with a broom. :D

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On 7/29/2021 at 4:05 PM, Rippounet said:

Given the way the Games work, it's easy to see that the host cities will spend public money and that private companies will generate a profit. Politicians will get kickbacks of course.

Which is why long-term meaningful reforms aren’t likely to be implemented.

Like you say the tendency of cities getting shafted isn’t some new development, it’s always been the norm and the people doing the shafting tend to walk out richer with no real negative consequences for them personally

The people who launched Montreal Olympics in 1976 are mostly either retired and living comfortably or dead after living life in wealth.
The people who launched Tokyo Olympics  will share a similar fate to their predecessors.

The amount of faith put  in the idea that the IOC will reform meaningfully because it’s in their interest for long-term seems…I guess naive? Because it seems to rest on the idea of people who work for corporate entities not having the tendency to prioritize their own short term interests over the long term damage to the entity they work for the society they live in or even themselves when there’s a lot of money they can grab immediately.

Like for example Climate change and fossil fuel companies. Or the 2008 housing and the predatory lending practices by the banks. 

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3 hours ago, Varysblackfyre321 said:

The amount of faith put  in the idea that the IOC will reform meaningfully because it’s in their interest for long-term seems…I guess naive?

Hah.  The IOC may not reform itself to your satisfaction but it just has to reform itself enough to ensure cities continue to be interested in hosting the event. :)  Sure, you can say that humans do stupid things all the time.  And the IOC could do stupid things but unlike climate change, its going to be very binary about whether anyone is interested in hosting the event.

Besides, you can't talk about how crafty the profitmakers are one minute, and then suggest they are stupid enough to kill their golden egg the next. :)

You are overplaying your hand on the corporate entity side though.  Its public officials that have to give the games the go ahead.  That is why they can be stopped.  (I know, corruption etc.  But you are still overplaying the hand.  There are limits to what they can do).

And I would be very surprised if the people who organised the Tokyo Olympics are put in the same boat as Montreal.  You'd have to be pretty mean to blame them for COVID!

I should mention that talking about profits is challenging.  An Olympics can also allow roads, public transport etc to be invested in.  These do profit everyone.  And if you can keep sporting facilities in use after the games, they can also result in a continuous source of income for the cities.  It is when they are not used that we have major difficulties.  Like a lot of things, the story is more complicated than some can suggest.

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23 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Besides, you can't talk about how crafty the profitmakers are one minute, and then suggest they are stupid enough to kill their golden egg the next.

I'm pretty sure the current state of affairs re: global warming, mismanagement of resources, pollution etc. proves this point to a T. "Get rich quick, hang the consequences" goes back a ways.

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On 7/30/2021 at 10:30 AM, williamjm said:

Apparently Paris 2024 is holding the surfing in Tahiti, it's hard to get more of a geographical spread than that. 

I mean, I thought that was clearly a joke. But no.

WTF is wrong with these people? Some of the best surfing in the world is on their doorstep. 

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Two books covered in the August issue of the LRB [strict paywall] are about Sports and doping.  One of them focuses on Russia, which, as you all know, is why its athletes are banned from the Olympics for some time, including this year.  Doping has always gone on in sports, including sports in which one of the team's members is an animal, as with horse racing, in which either the animal or the human is doped, or even both.  But there's nothing previous (except perhaps in horse racing) anything like what's been going on since the 1960's -- and now.

Vol. 43 No. 16 · 12 August 2021
Detecting the Duchess
Jon Day
2990 words

The Russian Affair: The True Story of the Couple who Uncovered the Greatest Sporting Scandal 
by David Walsh.
Simon and Schuster, 384 pp., £9.99, July, 978 1 4711 5818 6

The Rodchenkov Affair: How I Brought Down Russia’s Secret Doping Empire 
by Grigory Rodchenkov.
W.H. Allen, 320 pp., £8.99, July, 978 0 7535 5335 0

Two conclusions: 1) Top to bottom sports are dirty with doping; 2) make doping legal to make it more democratic, so non genius ability people can compete.

Quote

 

. . . . Despite this, top-level sport remains extremely dirty. In an era of unprecedented biological surveillance, athletes continue to cheat and to feel they have no choice but to do so. The long-running state-sponsored Russian doping programme culminated in the mass manipulation of in-competition testing during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics – one of the biggest, and most fascinating, examples of systematic doping in the history of sport. Since then, Russia’s persistent refusal to share its data and stored samples, to investigate its own anti-doping officials properly or to allow independent access to testing facilities has led to a series of sanctions, the most recent of which, in 2019, banned Russian athletes from international competition for four years (reduced to two years on appeal). This left Russian athletes ineligible for the Tokyo Olympics, but in a typical Wada fudge they have been permitted to compete under the banner of the ‘Russian Olympics Committee’. Their medals won’t contribute to Russia’s official tally, although one suspects this will make little difference to Russians themselves.

More rarely discussed is the role of Russian athletes, scientists and reporters in resisting and uncovering the culture of compulsive doping. The Russian Affair is an account of a young Russian couple – Yulia and Vitaly Stepanov – who helped expose a vast doping conspiracy. David Walsh, a sports journalist for the Times with a good record of uncovering cheats (he wrote about his role in exposing Lance Armstrong in his previous book, Seven Deadly Sins) . . .

. . . . It’s also not obvious that the advantages provided by doping should necessarily be thought of as unfair. ‘Some athletes,’ Rodchenkov writes,

are genetically gifted and can get to the top of their sport with natural training techniques; meanwhile, an athlete who seems unpromising can, after a modest doping regimen, show huge progress in developing skills and stamina, progressing to the point where he or she can challenge visibly stronger rivals. An average athlete might have more room for development and be more dedicated than the ‘natural’ competitor ... If sport was ‘clean’ that would be a reverse handicap, favouring naturally gifted athletes over their less advantaged rivals.

Without drugs, only a few talented athletes can ever compete at the highest levels of sport; by using them, those with unrealised potential are given their chance. Rather than seeking to make sport ‘clean’, Rodchenkov proposes that sporting bodies should try to inculcate a culture of sporting ‘honesty’: encouraging athletes to be explicit about the methods they use to improve their performance. A centrally administered, comprehensive and open doping culture in sport would allow for greater equality of opportunity for athletes. It’s an interpretation of fairness in sport that might be worth revisiting.

 

 

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3 hours ago, Spockydog said:

WTF is wrong with these people? Some of the best surfing in the world is on their doorstep. 

I assume the 2024 Olympics will be held in July/August, which is essentially the off-season for the surf spots in continental France.

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4 hours ago, lacuna said:

I'm pretty sure the current state of affairs re: global warming, mismanagement of resources, pollution etc. proves this point to a T. "Get rich quick, hang the consequences" goes back a ways.

I already answered this.

<<unlike climate change, its going to be very binary about whether anyone is interested in hosting the event>>.

Context is important when trying to make comparisons.

1 hour ago, Jon AS said:

I assume the 2024 Olympics will be held in July/August, which is essentially the off-season for the surf spots in continental France.

Interesting.  I wouldn't be surprised if France was trying to spread the Olympics across its territorities also.  Probably a few factors involved.

Quote

It’s also not obvious that the advantages provided by doping should necessarily be thought of as unfair. ‘Some athletes,’ Rodchenkov writes,

are genetically gifted and can get to the top of their sport with natural training techniques; meanwhile, an athlete who seems unpromising can, after a modest doping regimen, show huge progress in developing skills and stamina, progressing to the point where he or she can challenge visibly stronger rivals. An average athlete might have more room for development and be more dedicated than the ‘natural’ competitor ... If sport was ‘clean’ that would be a reverse handicap, favouring naturally gifted athletes over their less advantaged rivals.

Well that's crazy talk.

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29 minutes ago, Padraig said:

Well that's crazy talk.

Well, Fuentes (the doping doc in the centre of the Tour de France/Lance Armstrong scandal) said something similar back then.

Track and field events, cycling and swimming competitions are just lost and are never going to be clean, so they might as well just legalize everything. He went on to say, that some athletes (like Usain Bolt) have innate advantage over their competitors due to their genes [some people just grow muscles easier], and doping was basically a way to level the playing field. And obviously, it's better to administer performance enhanching drugs under medical surveillance, so that there's no long term damage to the health of the athletes.

So Rodchenkov is not saying anything new. Ofc, those arguments are usually coming from the people that are heavily linked to doping. It's basically whataboutism.

Doping is distorting the competiton and violating its integrity? What about genetics?

It's ofc bare nonsense and a way to try to justify doping.

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