OT: What To Do About the Olympics?
The rolling disaster that is the Olympic Games continues to escalate in Rio, as the burgeoning Zika virus has prompted 200 doctors to urge the postponement or relocation of the Olympic Games this August. This is on top of widespread turmoil in Brazil.
I've grown increasingly weary with the politics and corruption involved in the Olympics, and it is increasingly clear that no city should ever subject themselves to them again.
But they are two months away. At this point, what would you do? Brazil has already spent basically all of the money to produce the massive infrastructure the IOC requires (which is a huge part of the problem, because bids are built upon systematic mega-dollar kickbacks the promise of massive and expensive building programs to make the host city a showcase for the Games, making this an absurd proposition for most locations). Traveling and television production plans have been made. The tickets have been purchased.
But even beside all this, where would you put them on short notice? I sometimes speculate that the World Cup should be moved from Qatar to the US, because that's obviously smart and logical. But that works because the US has so much sports infrastructure that the only question would be which $500 million stadiums would lose out in a bid. Everything is there.
But the Summer Olympics require an infrastructure that is virtually impossible to find in existence anywhere, let alone produce on short notice. Obviously, logical options would include previous hosts of the games, but even many of those cities can no longer hold them on short notice. Just finding a stadium with an Olympic-sized track is a chore, because stadiums that size have very poor sightlines for other sports and are often modified or destroyed. Atlanta, for example, turned theirs into a now-about-to-be-defunct baseball stadium. The LA Colisseum has been modified for football. Turin built a brand new stadium with track for World Cup 90, and it was such a disaster that local team Juventus eventually bought the thing just to demolish it.
This is not even considering the many other sports that need to be held. Gymnastics needs at least half of a basketball arena, and there aren't many Olympic swimming/diving complexes that also have a lot of seating available.
There's always a delay... but how long would it last? Zika might not cease to be a problem in 12 months.
Feel free to drift here and discuss other Olympic "issues."
Yeah it is... it's #28. (ducks)
...has anyone ever frequented the website Liveleak? Spend 30-60 mins on there and you'll realize Brazil is hell on earth.
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Unfortunately delaying or relocating the Brasil Olympics is not happening. It takes years and thousands of people to plan such an event. This poses another question:
What would you do if you were an Olympic athlete who qualifies? I know most (traditional Olympic sport) athletes would not pass up an opportunity to compete in the Olympics. They've trained their entire career to represent their country in the pinnacle event of their sport. For many this is their once-in-a-lifetime. I personally know athletes from the 1980 Olympic team who are still upset they could not compete in the Moscow Games and can nver get that dream back.
However, what would you tell your family who wants to travel and see you compete in the Olympics? Would you encourage them to stay home and not travel to Brasil for the risk of their health?
To give my 2 cents, I would go as an athlete but encourage my family not to attend. However, as a parent or an athlete, I would also not pass up attending the Olympics to support my kid.
This could be apocryphal, but I lived in LA for 15 years and heard a couple times that LA always submits a kind of "if necessary" bid to the USOC/IOC. They claim that LA can be ready to host the Summer Games on short notice if something goes wrong with the host city. I don't think two months notice is what they have in mind, but they certainly have all the necessary venues - basically everything from the '84 games plus many new ones.
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Just grabbing a few examples off your list: Swine flu killed ~15,000 people world wide, and Ebola has very likely killed more than that, though it's difficult to tell because record keeping in western African nations is spotty, but it's safe to assume that the death toll is over 10,000. SARS killed about 700 people. MERS has killed over 600.
It's true that coverage of large bacterial or viral outbreaks like these are covered breathlessly in the US media, in a way which suggests that many people who aren't in danger actually are (Ebola is an excellent example of this), but these aren't nothing outbreaks. They kill real people in big numbers and are very serious. Zika is serious, even if it isn't likely to affact you or anyone you know.
As for Brazil having the standard "Not ready for the Olympics" - this isn't that. Brazil's diving and sailing areas are filled with human sewage. A literal shithole. This isn't London not being sure how it's going to handle parking. Participating in certain events in Rio is actually dangerous to your health, in a big way.
But you do realize that someday one of them very well could (will?) turn into a pandemic.
Early warning and action will be the key to controlling one when it does.
Completely agree that the media sensationalizes outbreaks to an extent that is not helpful, but it is better than ignoring the them.
It, like Bolivia and Venezuela, has been horrible mismanaged for years now. Everyone is talking about the instability in the Middle East and Africa, but Latin America has several countries with serious internal problems. The aforementioned plus Mexico and it's drug war.
The world is as chaotic as it has ever been. Sad, real sad.
America is having it's problems, of course. But nothing like what is going on in other countries.
Seriously, right now the world is calm pond compared to any number of decades over the last several hundred years.
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USA > back to back World Champs!!!
countries those nations are looking at revolutuon.
There is no cold war to encourage such a policy and the country is beyond impatient with foreign adventures.
Military's could revolt, but Russia will be doing the supporting if any foreign power is involved. Russia appears to be the bastion of reactionism these days.
I would move it to Los Angeles.
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There have been 2500 cases of microcephaly CUMULATIVE in Brazil since they've been tracking this for the last few years (compared to the 3 million babies per year born in Brazil). So the rate is at worst 0.008% of microcephaly overall. That's barely one order of magnitude higher than the background risk of microcephaly, and that's assuming that all 2500 cases are from one year, which they aren't. It's also assuming that all cases are directly linked to zika, which they haven't been
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Same thing goes for competing in the water in Rio. Most athletes competing in the bay have already had multiple events there and say it's not a big deal. Clean yourself and your gear good when you're done and you're fine. Water is shitty all over the world. They are use to this and know what to do to limit risks.
The uninformed and ignorant are making this out to be a much bigger deal than it really is.
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Show me where the "clueless" assumption comes through. I'm simply recognizing the fact that people are fallible and so are birth control methods. People will return from Brazil feeling fine and have unprotected sex, even though they should continue to be vigilant for several months as they could be infected with the virus. There are simply too many people involved and transmission now appears to be fairly easy via multiple methods, for this not to be a real risk that people are not going to be able to totally control.
And no matter what you or your contacts in the know say about the water, rowers and other athletes will of course be ingesting elevated levels of fecal bacteria and having any wounds exposed to such bacteria, so they are taking hep A, polio, and typhoid vaccines and taking the measures you mention and more. Sure most of them will be fine despite ingesting lots of fecal bacteria, but that's pretty gross and some will get sick. I mentioned this issue because of course it was one of the contingencies in Brazil's being awarded the games that they have not lived up to.
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The Olympics should be held in the United States every 4 years, and maybe 3-4 other major powers that can afford them, have the infratructure to support them, and only require minimal upgrades.
You could move the Olympics tomorrow and there are at least a half-dozen US cities that could host them this summer without building a single venue.
Have the Olympics be in Greece permanently. They belong there. Other major events are held in the same place every time (the Masters, the tennis Grand Slams, etc.); the Olympics can be as well. And then Athens can actually use all those facilities it built for 2004. Have corporate sponsors pitch in to help with any renovations.
And given that paying for all those facilities contributed to Greece's budget disaster, the IOC owes them one.
Perhaps the IOC organizers should of thought about the rivers and sanitation and health care instead of lining their wallets.
I am more interested in to see how many europeans and americans buy tickets for the world cup in QATAR with limited hotels, and strict alcohol policies and scorching heat even in december.