The Vancouver Legacy? Death and Debt
By Evan Weiner
February 27, 2010
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d27-The-Vancouver-legacy-Death-and-debt#
(New York, N. Y.) -- The Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver was the fortnight it was, it’s over and it is time to let it go. The Olympic experience should be a study in marvelous athletic achievement but that is rarely the case. There is the Olympics hangover reality and the Vancouver legacy (sports journalists always buy into the “legacy” aspect as if the Olympics provide a legacy) is simple. The death of a luge participant because a course was unsafe although International Olympic Committee members quickly absolved themselves of any culpability in the death of the Georgian luge performer Nodar Kumaritashvilli and the death was quickly forgotten after the opening ceremonies just like the deaths of 11 Israelis during a terrorist attack in the Olympic Village in Munich, Germany during the 1972 Summer Games and a pile of debt.
The Games must go on.
At some point after the television world and media leaves Vancouver, some sports historians will begin assessing the legacy of the Vancouver Games. The real legacy will not be pretty but that “real” legacy will be whitewashed and swept under the rug. That is the way it is when dealing with the Olympics and the International Olympics Committee. The golden girl of these Olympics was supposed to be the American skier Lindsay Vonn, but she did not live up to the hype that the American broadcast rights holder General Electric’s NBCUniversal built.
In a sense Vonn and NBCUniversal end the Olympics in the same boat, Vonn probably missed out on numerous marketing dollars in the US and NBCUniversal lost a lot of money on televising the event.
(There is still Olympic style competition that will take place in Vancouver with the Paralympic Games scheduled to start after the Olympics circus leaves Vancouver. That competition will largely be ignored in the United States as the sports media shifts their limited attention to college basketball and the aptly named March Madness, an event that is truly madness as the performers, college basketball players, somehow get left out of being compensated for an event that puts hundreds of millions of dollars into the pockets of a myriad of people ranging from network executives to arena operators, to marketers to college coaches and a slew of others. Yet sports scribes overlook the money aspect of March Madness and how the performers are severely shortchanged.)
The Vancouver legacy will be the death of an athlete and lots of red ink. There was always some censorship as the people who run the Vancouver Public Libraries were told not to schedule events and go out and get sponsors that are competitors of Olympics partners. The IOC and the Canadian and local government apparent did not remember libraries are a product of local taxes and the libraries are used by members of the community who may not give a hoot about the Olympics.
The final bill for the Vancouver Winter Olympics will not come in for a while but Vancouver organizers know that they will be losing money and that British Columbia taxpayers will be paying off the debt for years and years just like Montreal and Quebec residents did after the financially bruising 1976 Summer Olympics.
It took 30 years to pay off the debt there and the Montreal legacy is two fold. The Olympic Stadium was a money losing lemon from the day it opened and the politicizing of the event as African countries didn’t show up because New Zealand was not kicked out because a New Zealand rugby team played in the apartheid country of South Africa.
So what is the Olympics legacy?
The IOC tries to sell great performances but that is just a smokescreen. In 1936, Jeremiah Mahoney knew that sending an American team to the Berlin Games was a bad move because that Olympics was designed to legitimize Adolf Hitler. Mahoney, who was the President of the American Athletic Union, saw what was going on in Germany and knew that African Americans and American Jews would have a tough time in Germany and urged an American boycott of the Games.
The AAU voted in December 1935 to not send a team to Berlin but Avery Brundage, the President of the American Olympic Committee overruled Mahoney and the Games went on. Brundage was a central figure in the Olympics movement. He presided over the 1972 Games in Munich and made the decision or at least announced the decision that “The Games Must Go On” after the Munich Massacre.
Brundage was appalled in 1968 when American athletes John Carlos and Tommie Smith were on the podium giving a black power salute. Smith won the gold, Carlos the bronze in the 200-meter race. Brundage threw the pair out of the Olympic Village because Brundage thought it was a travesty for the pair to protest black poverty in the United States.
Brundage thought the Olympics was an apolitical forum.
Brundage was far from apolitical. If he had dictator powers, he would have barred women from competing in the Games. He also covered up the fact that he had two sons born to a woman who was not his wife.
He called the 1936 Berlin Games the finest ever held and apparently overlooked the Nazi salutes that took place in Berlin. He had no problems with the inclusion of Rhodesian in the Games despite that country’s racial policies in the 1970s.
Eight years after Munich, the IOC elected Juan Antonio Samaranch to run the organization. The politicizing of the Olympics, which had always been there, reached a new height when United States President Jimmy Carter ordered an Olympic boycott by the American team of the 1980 Moscow Games because the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. In retaliation, the Soviet Union and Iron Curtain countries didn’t show up at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
Samaranch, who was apparently as corrupt as they came, ushered in a new era of the Olympics as well. IOC delegates took bribes from cities that wanted the Olympics during his reign.
The financial wreckage of Samaranch’s tenure will be felt in Sydney and in Athens for generations. The IOC began demanding that if cities wanted the Olympics, they better be prepared to pay and pay and pay and even though American broadcast rights escalated, the American TV dollars were no match for the expense of hosting an Olympics.
Vancouver is finding that out first hand. Sydney is paying to maintain buildings that have not been used after the 2000 Games. The 2004 Athens’ experience didn’t bankrupt Greece but it is a part of the debt that Greece cannot pay. The Bird’s Nest Stadium in Beijing was mostly unused.
The Olympics legacy works two ways. In the disposable for the minute journalism world of the 21st century, Olympics success is judged by how many endorsements a Gold Medallist can garner following the Games. But the for the minute journalists and more importantly the guardians at the gate, their editors, should be paying much closer attention to the International Olympic Committee and how that group seems to be an entity with more power than local elected officials.
The IOC has saddled countries with unnecessary debt, however they have been welcomed by politicians and business leaders who throw themselves at IOC officials like groupies throw themselves at baseball players in hotel lobbies or outside stadiums.
There is one Vancouver Games athlete who perished because the IOC wanted thrills and spills in a quest for faster competition during the luge and that we be addressed no doubt in some court proceeding somewhere in British Columbia and a pile of debt.
That is the real legacy of the Vancouver Games.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
Showing posts with label Nodar Kumaritashvili. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nodar Kumaritashvili. Show all posts
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Games Must Go On Despite a Death
The Games Must Go On Despite a Death
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d13-The-Games-must-go-on-despite-a-death
By Evan Weiner
February 13, 2010
(New York, N. Y. ) -- And so the Games must go on, and the luge event will go on at the Vancouver Winter Olympics even though one of the Olympics’ own, Georgia luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili lost his life in a practice run on the luge track. The Games must go on and Olympics (the Vancouver organizers) officials and the International Luge Federation have already washed their hands of the accident blaming Kumaritashvili not the track for the 21-year-old Georgians death.
You see according to the organizers, poor Kumaritashvili just messed up coming out of Curve 15 and going into Curve 16 on the track. The unfortunate luge participant ended up flying over a wall and then crashing into a steel beam which killed him.
The Games must go on and there was a gala opening ceremony which costs tens of millions of loonies that took place just hours after Kumaritashvili’s death.
The Games must go on. The International Olympics Committee President Jacques Rogge made his decree and that he be part of his legacy. Someone needs to already say no more to Rogge and his associates but no one has stepped up yet.
The Games must go on.
Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper was at the Vancouver Opening Ceremony and should be ordering some Canadian agency to look into what exactly happened and whether the luge track is safe. Harper, who twice shut down the Canadian Parliament in 2009 for political advantage, could easily tell the International Olympic Committee, the Games need to stop, at least the luge event, until a thorough investigation takes place in the events surrounding the death of the Georgia athlete.
Eventually there will be a legitimate investigation when the lawsuits start to fly and there will be lawsuits and there will be other athletes who will under oath testify about the track. There will also be engineers and others who will eventually have to talk about the design and safety of the course.
The Harper government, the British Columbia government and Vancouver’s government should be more active in the investigation and shut down the track. They should not be enablers for Rogge and his international gang. The Games can go on without the luge event even though there would be an outcry that luge participants have trained their entire lives for the event and it would be unfair for them to miss out at their chance for Olympic gold.
The death of the Georgia athlete will be the legacy of the Vancouver Games, Olympic officials always talk of legacy and a willing media will play the game and be Olympic stenographers. How can the media play a different role? Back in the late 1990s, New York’s four major newspapers kicked in money to support a New York City Olympic bid. NBC News in the United States is a willing partner of the International Olympic Committee as the parent division, General Electric led by CEO Jeffrey Immelt, signed a $2.2 billion (US) with the IOC for the United States video rights to the Vancouver Games and the 2012 London Summer Games back in 2003.
Richard Sandomir in Saturday’s edition of the New York Times wrote a laudatory column explaining how NBC had to work the death into the Olympic narrative. Imagine that a television news division having the flexibility to cover a news event at fantasyland or the corporate bazaar known as the Olympics.
The Games must go on mantra came after the 1972 Munich Massacre when Israeli athletes were killed in a terrorist attack in the Olympic Village. The International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage decided after a day of mourning, the Games must go on and they did. The International Olympic Committee has never looked back.
Brundage in 1971 said the 1936 Hitler Summer Games in Berlin were the finest in modern history.
The International Olympic Committee has a long history of running roughshod over politicians who do more than genuflect when they get a whiff of the possibility of the five ring circus that is coming to town. The financial wreckage of the Olympics remains on display in Sydney from the 2000 Summer Games and in Athens where Greece remains on the hook for billions of euros worth of debt from the 2004 Games. Greece is in deep financial trouble now and while it is inaccurate to blame the 2004 Games for all of the country’s financial woes, the 2004 Summer Games debt is on the books and has added to Greece’s fiscal problems. Vancouver will be a money loser. NBC could lose $200 million on the Games, the local Olympic organizers will be leaning on the government, i. e. taxpayers, to bail them out to pay off the debt which is all the more reason for Harper to get involved in a thorough investigation of the accident at the track and see if there are flaws in the design that led to the death of Kurmaritashvili.
It is time that someone stands up to the IOC but apparently Harper won’t be that person. The Canadian Parliament goes back to work after the Vancouver closing ceremonies. There are much more pressing problems than the death of an Olympic athlete for MPs in Ottawa, yet there needs to be an investigation since millions of Canadians whether they like it or not are stakeholders in the Canadian-IOC partnerships that might cost them billions of loonies to pay off the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics debt.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-3926-Business-of-Sports-Examiner~y2010m2d13-The-Games-must-go-on-despite-a-death
By Evan Weiner
February 13, 2010
(New York, N. Y. ) -- And so the Games must go on, and the luge event will go on at the Vancouver Winter Olympics even though one of the Olympics’ own, Georgia luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili lost his life in a practice run on the luge track. The Games must go on and Olympics (the Vancouver organizers) officials and the International Luge Federation have already washed their hands of the accident blaming Kumaritashvili not the track for the 21-year-old Georgians death.
You see according to the organizers, poor Kumaritashvili just messed up coming out of Curve 15 and going into Curve 16 on the track. The unfortunate luge participant ended up flying over a wall and then crashing into a steel beam which killed him.
The Games must go on and there was a gala opening ceremony which costs tens of millions of loonies that took place just hours after Kumaritashvili’s death.
The Games must go on. The International Olympics Committee President Jacques Rogge made his decree and that he be part of his legacy. Someone needs to already say no more to Rogge and his associates but no one has stepped up yet.
The Games must go on.
Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper was at the Vancouver Opening Ceremony and should be ordering some Canadian agency to look into what exactly happened and whether the luge track is safe. Harper, who twice shut down the Canadian Parliament in 2009 for political advantage, could easily tell the International Olympic Committee, the Games need to stop, at least the luge event, until a thorough investigation takes place in the events surrounding the death of the Georgia athlete.
Eventually there will be a legitimate investigation when the lawsuits start to fly and there will be lawsuits and there will be other athletes who will under oath testify about the track. There will also be engineers and others who will eventually have to talk about the design and safety of the course.
The Harper government, the British Columbia government and Vancouver’s government should be more active in the investigation and shut down the track. They should not be enablers for Rogge and his international gang. The Games can go on without the luge event even though there would be an outcry that luge participants have trained their entire lives for the event and it would be unfair for them to miss out at their chance for Olympic gold.
The death of the Georgia athlete will be the legacy of the Vancouver Games, Olympic officials always talk of legacy and a willing media will play the game and be Olympic stenographers. How can the media play a different role? Back in the late 1990s, New York’s four major newspapers kicked in money to support a New York City Olympic bid. NBC News in the United States is a willing partner of the International Olympic Committee as the parent division, General Electric led by CEO Jeffrey Immelt, signed a $2.2 billion (US) with the IOC for the United States video rights to the Vancouver Games and the 2012 London Summer Games back in 2003.
Richard Sandomir in Saturday’s edition of the New York Times wrote a laudatory column explaining how NBC had to work the death into the Olympic narrative. Imagine that a television news division having the flexibility to cover a news event at fantasyland or the corporate bazaar known as the Olympics.
The Games must go on mantra came after the 1972 Munich Massacre when Israeli athletes were killed in a terrorist attack in the Olympic Village. The International Olympic Committee President Avery Brundage decided after a day of mourning, the Games must go on and they did. The International Olympic Committee has never looked back.
Brundage in 1971 said the 1936 Hitler Summer Games in Berlin were the finest in modern history.
The International Olympic Committee has a long history of running roughshod over politicians who do more than genuflect when they get a whiff of the possibility of the five ring circus that is coming to town. The financial wreckage of the Olympics remains on display in Sydney from the 2000 Summer Games and in Athens where Greece remains on the hook for billions of euros worth of debt from the 2004 Games. Greece is in deep financial trouble now and while it is inaccurate to blame the 2004 Games for all of the country’s financial woes, the 2004 Summer Games debt is on the books and has added to Greece’s fiscal problems. Vancouver will be a money loser. NBC could lose $200 million on the Games, the local Olympic organizers will be leaning on the government, i. e. taxpayers, to bail them out to pay off the debt which is all the more reason for Harper to get involved in a thorough investigation of the accident at the track and see if there are flaws in the design that led to the death of Kurmaritashvili.
It is time that someone stands up to the IOC but apparently Harper won’t be that person. The Canadian Parliament goes back to work after the Vancouver closing ceremonies. There are much more pressing problems than the death of an Olympic athlete for MPs in Ottawa, yet there needs to be an investigation since millions of Canadians whether they like it or not are stakeholders in the Canadian-IOC partnerships that might cost them billions of loonies to pay off the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics debt.
evanjweiner@yahoo.com
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