Meh. So don't hold the Olympics. The world will continue to spin.
Seriously, if it's gotten to the point where only autocratic states will be in the running as hosts, and only suboptimal venues available as a result, then not holding the games seems like an option worth considering. The 2008 Beijing Olympics certainly did nothing to improve human rights in China.
We'd need TWO sites.Find a permanent site, so that we stop blowing so many tons of money every four years?
Antarctica and Morocco.
Not Antarctica. We don't need those kind of extremes for the Winter Games. That and building an Olympic City there would be ecologically devastating to what is essentially a scientific preserve.Antarctica and Morocco.We'd need TWO sites.Find a permanent site, so that we stop blowing so many tons of money every four years?
If we are building the entire site from the ground up we could build them both in morocco. But the real idea was to suggest some place that would be a catastrophic cash sink on a global scale sense we will need to continue to waste untold fortunes on something.
If the IOC used its funding to help build the infrastructure needed for the olympics, it would find itself welcomed in more places.
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Bah, my home city resigned from competing for the troubles honor of holding those olympics half a year ago... Actually, it was my co-citizens through public referendum who decided that applying in the first place was dumb willfulness of the city magistrates, to the annoyance of city magistrates and city president, who were pushing for holding of the olympics despite all the disruption of city life it would bring.
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They either need to completely clean house at the IOC, or just end the Olympics. The "bidding" process is nothing more than a shakedown, and placing the games in totalitarian states does nothing to help spread basic human rights, and only empowers the strong men running those countries, giving them legitimacy.
Not holding the games doesn't have to be the only other answer.
It's simply time to start thinking about holding them differently so it doesn't have to be so expensive. Perhaps as a series of smaller events instead of one mega thingie? The original Olympics after all wasn't nearly as large or all encompassing.
The original Olympics' intent was to train soldiers and celebrate soldiering via the inclusion of physical activities that soldiers would be expected to know and excel in - this included the ability to cross short and long distances on foot and at speed, the ability to wrestle, throw a javelin, etc.
I believe the bloat has gotten the better of the Olympics - MOAR is simply not always better. There are countless events which almost no one in the world has any interest in viewing and oftentimes few countries have any interest in competing. I say let most of the team events go (do we really need another venue to watch basketball?) and pare down the Olympics to about 1/10 of its current size. Focus on individual events like Wrestling, Track & Field and Gymnastics and let international Badmitten or Curling fend for themselves.
What the Olympics needs to do is move all the judged events to a separate "Olympics" and move some of the winter games from the Summer Olympics to the Winter Olympics. Indoor sports such as Basketball, Wrestling, Weightlifting, Judo, etc. can be switched, balancing out the sizes of the games.
Also go back to real rifles, none of this air rifle garbage.
(do we really need another venue to watch basketball?)
There are other venues?
(do we really need another venue to watch basketball?)There are other venues?
Self-absorbed Americans. We're a+~%$!#s, sorry.