Some have called the upcoming 2016 Summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro a disaster — a “Sharknado: The 4th Awakens”-grade disaster — waiting to happen.
Actually, the disaster has already occurred.
Olympic officials and Rio’s leaders insist that the city is ready to host the Games. What else would you expect them to say as the opening day of Aug. 5 nears?
The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal wrote that the Rio Games will be “a global showcase for the Zika virus, athletes doping, sewage-polluted waterways, terrorism fears, crass commercialism, jingoism, rampant corruption and a host nation’s largesse it can ill afford with its economy limping along.”
He didn’t mention that some Olympic venues still aren’t ready and thousands of people — most of them poor — were forcibly removed to make room for facilities that probably won’t be used again. There are also widespread charges of corruption in connection with the construction of these white elephants.
The Olympic Village, where the world’s greatest athletes will stay during the games, isn’t ready yet. In fact, the conditions — including leaking pipes, clogged toilets or no toilets at all and exposed wires — were so bad that the Australian team refused to move in last weekend.
Not all of the world’s top athletes will be in Rio. Following revelations of widespread doping, more than 100 Russian athletes, including all but one member of the track and field team, were banned from competing in Rio.
This kind of corruption and mismanagement is what the Olympics is all about. Venue problems started with the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896. The American team didn’t like its accommodations that year, either.
Since then, Olympic cities have routinely displaced or detained thousands of people to make room for the Games or to keep undesirables away from the events, tourists and television cameras.
The International Olympic Committee rivals FIFA, soccer’s governing body, when it comes to corruption. For example, French authorities are investigating the bidding and voting processes for the 2016 Rio and 2020 Tokyo Games. This comes after the IOC supposedly cleaned up its act after the 2002 Salt Lake City Games scandal.
Rio, like the rest of Brazil, is not a happy place right now. The country has been wracked by political unrest. It is stricken by crime and poverty. But you probably won’t see any of that on NBC’s Olympic broadcasts.
Terrorism has been a major concern at the Olympics since the 1972 Munich Games. Brazil, which has little experience fighting terrorism, has deployed an Olympics-record 85,000 security personnel at a cost of $2 billion. Hopefully, there’s safety in numbers.
So why in the face of all of these negatives will the Rio Games go on? Money. Television networks, including NBC, have paid billions for a 17-day spectacle that will draw a massive worldwide audience and more billions in advertising revenue.
The London Guardian’s David Goldblatt wrote, “Does this make it the worst prepared Games ever? Probably. But to this Brazil has added a degree of political, financial and administrative chaos that is its own. ...
“Rio, whatever its other sins, cannot be faulted in its determination to let it all hang out. Such inadvertent transparency, such a tangible display of the destruction of whatever remains of the myths of Olympic urbanism, and the IOC’s political autonomy and moral probity, may be Rio’s historic legacy. For whatever happens for the 17 days of the Games ... the disaster has already happened, it is of unprecedented proportions, and it cannot be hidden.”
Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the father of the modern Olympics, saw them as a way to promote world peace. Two world wars, a Cold War and endless smaller conflicts later, the baron’s goal is a failure.
If the Olympics’ intent was to unite mankind, they would quit flying flags and playing national anthems at the medal ceremonies. Of course, it will never happen. That kind of us-vs.-them rivalry is what generates global enthusiasm and TV ratings.
• Contact Charles Corder at 581-7241 or ccorder@gwcommonwealth.com.
