2012 Olympic Bid

[mjunkin]

An article from today's newspaper....any opinions/thoughts?

Too far: NYC won by losing bid to host Olympics

By GRAHAM MESSNER
For Public Opinion
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Almost 30 years ago, the Olympics were held in Montreal; 1976 to be exact.

As of today, the amount of debt rung up by eager Canadian politicians and the beautiful people looking for Olympic adoration in the form of party hosting, galas, social pages, etc., has yet to be paid off.

Actually, some time this year or in early 2006, the last payment will be made and the citizens of Montreal will be free to spend more money on important stuff.

As you may or may not have known, there was a contingent of extremely wealthy and powerful people who were behind the unsuccessful New York City 2012 Summer Olympics bid.

The winner, announced Wednesday, was London, with Paris coming in second.

As the last week passed, it was interesting reading and watching the level of intensity and frustration emanating from the NYC 2012 camp. Why?

The people spearheading the campaign are the types who are used to getting their way and someone was simply saying, "No, thanks."

In my humble opinion, I couldn't care less if another overpriced Olympics is ever held in the United States, let alone New York. For me, the Olympics have become some sort of overhyped, never-ending, Super Bowlish information frenzy that has gotten way too slick and way too professional on and off the playing fields.

Who really needs promos and hype when some young unknown with "USA" on his shirt is overachieving on his way to a medal? I don't need HDTV, surround sound, an event replayed in slow motion to a Bo Bice song or expert commentary from Olga Korbut or Carl Lewis. The events themselves tell the story.

It used to truly be about the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat when our amateurs competed. Not anymore.

Now it's about production and countless "human interest" stories surrounding any athlete who has ever overcome some sort of personal hardship in their lifetime. You get journalistic gems like, "It wasn't too long ago when the only sprint Dave Jackson made was to the buffet line ..."

According to numerous reports, all the recent bids came in around the $2.5 billion to $3 billion range.

Let's use the recently held, and impressive, games last summer in Greece: According to the Indianapolis Star, Greece won the right to hold the Olympics with a bid of $1.3 billion, seven years before the games were actually held last summer. By the time all the actual planning was done, the price tag had hit $5.3 billion. (Note: I just want to know what kind of planning was done before the actual planning, and, if it's not actual, why is it taken seriously?)

Now catch this. When all was said and done, the final cost to the people of Greece was $14.2 billion of world-class infrastructure that will rarely be used again. Yikes!

That's what absolutely frightened me about the NYC bid.

Whatever number the NYC bid was had to be arbitrary at best and whatever that number had been would've ended up being a drop in the bucket compared to the actual amount of loot needed in 2012. Can you imagine the security cost?

What's more, people who are millionaires and billionaires — mayor Michael Bloomberg and deputy mayor Daniel Doctoroff — were the ones bidding and the ones who would've made the decisions that literally would've cost us all.

For these wildly rich kind of people, what's a couple of extra billion? They have no clue of reality and money is no object whatsoever. It's about the thrill of the chase and getting to host a huge, international event in their caviar sandbox. Why don't they just stick to polo and finger sandwiches?

And we all would have paid this tab — not just New Yorkers — for decades to come.

In the NYC bid, there was a hidden little snippet that stated that the U.S. government would have footed the bill in wildly, open-ended fashion for any security costs that exceeded $101 million. Is that really something we want to be spending money on in seven years? And, as we all now know, the bids aren't actual bids.

Oh yeah, and it all seems that the NYC mayor and his deputy were red hot to build a new stadium in Manhattan right on top of a neighborhood where people now live, all in the name of economic growth. Remember that Supreme Court decision two weeks ago regarding eminent domain? Had the Olympics been awarded to NYC, you most certainly would've seen eminent domain invoked. And who would've lost their homes?

Surely not the Bloombergs.

As competitive as I am, I hate to lose anything.

The fact that we lost the bid and I was scarcely bothered tells me we all just won for losing in the long run.

I say let's just congratulate the Brits on their "victory" and then give them a big high five. If nothing else, at least they beat the French.

Things have gone too for too long.

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Graham Messner, a former coach at the high school level, is a local columnist for Public Opinion. He may be reached at [email protected].

Originally published July 7, 2005
http://www.publicopiniononline.com/apps ... 70314/1006

[Pale Rider]

They should have left those "frogs" have it. It would serve them right.