Politics and economics of the 2022 Olympic Winter Games

gravy said:

When people speak of 3 consecutive Olympics in Asia, they are including the summer edition: 2018 Pyeongchang, 2020 Tokyo, 2022 China or Kazakhstan.

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Aha! So that's it!

The only Olympic Games I ever pay any attention to are the Winter version, so I hadn't a clue where any of the upcoming Summer Games were being held!

Yeah, I can see now why the rest of the world might be getting a bit annoyed. But, at the end of the day, Europe and North America have had so many Olympics over the past century. It's only fair that the IOC try to even things up a bit.

South America, Africa and Australia have not had many Olympic Games, but they are not really suitable for a Winter Games. But, there is a vast swathe of Asia that has never held any Olympics, and Kazakhstan has the facilities already in place, so why not go there?!

Incidentally, I just looked up the bidders for the 2020 Summer Games. Why was Japan awarded their FOURTH Olympics (after the 1964 Smmer Games in Tokyo; the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo; and the 1988 Winter Games in Nagano)???!!!

Surely it would have been fairer to award them to one of the other bidders, as none of them had hosted any Olympics before. Especially if they selected Turkey, since there has never been an Olympics in the Middle East.

But, hey!

Thank you for the clarification, gravy, and sorry Krunchii

CaroLiza_fan

CaroLiza_fan said:

Aha! So that's it!

The only Olympic Games I ever pay any attention to are the Winter version, so I hadn't a clue where any of the upcoming Summer Games were being held!

Yeah, I can see now why the rest of the world might be getting a bit annoyed. But, at the end of the day, Europe and North America have had so many Olympics over the past century. It's only fair that the IOC try to even things up a bit.

South America, Africa and Australia have not had many Olympic Games, but they are not really suitable for a Winter Games. But, there is a vast swathe of Asia that has never held any Olympics, and Kazakhstan has the facilities already in place, so why not go there?!

Incidentally, I just looked up the bidders for the 2020 Summer Games. Why was Japan awarded their FOURTH Olympics (after the 1964 Smmer Games in Tokyo; the 1972 Winter Games in Sapporo; and the 1988 Winter Games in Nagano)???!!!

Surely it would have been fairer to award them to one of the other bidders, as none of them had hosted any Olympics before. Especially if they selected Turkey, since there has never been an Olympics in the Middle East.

But, hey!

Thank you for the clarification, gravy, and sorry Krunchii

CaroLiza_fan

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The ISU ignores human rights issues at their peril right now. Beijing, Sochi and likely Rio 2016 have all been marred by the poor HR standards set by these governments. Why should we honour and praise these countries (or allow them to honour and praise themselves) in lavish opening ceremonies etc. when they are so clearly not forces for good in the world at this time. I would find the idea of a Kazakhstan games deeply troubling for this reason. China, not really much better. What's more, there are serious security risks with staging a games in Turkey right now, which as you must know borders some seriously unstable countries.

I think, as selections go, the most recent games usually influence the next selection quite strongly. Remember, the IOC chose Athens in 1997 to try and class-up the Games by returning to the roots and history of the Olympics, one year after the overly commercialized, tacky ho-down in Atlanta. After Athens and the myriad of problems associated with construction and delays, in 2005 the IOC chose London which already had most of its sporting stadiums and infrastructure built. The biggest takeaway from Sochi is that dishing out Olympic Games to countries with poor human rights records and significant corruption problems no longer flies so well. We will feel this again with Rio, most likely. So I think the IOC will look at the bids and decide which of the two terrible human rights records, China or Kazakhstan, is the lesser of two evils. And which of the two has a better record with corruption. My money is on China.

Meoima said:

I didn't know IOC is such a diva. :scowl:

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To make it up to us, they should all hold hands and lip-synch to "We Belong Together" and put it up on YouTube as an apology. Of course, no one would take it seriously, but it would go viral.

Oh please give me a break.... just because it may be hosted in a nation that is one of the 'good ole boys', all the problems wouldn't have suddenly gone away. Having it in a controversial place actually pushes the rest of the world to face the ugly issues and hopefully force the country for change. 'Hope' is all you can ask for if one is to be realistic. The legacy of of a global sport event is that it has the potential to bring peace and solidarity for 2 weeks at least with moments of reflection while paying attention.

Take Sochi for example. Russia invaded Ukraine the very next week after the main Olympics before ParaOlympics even finishes? With out the Olympics, would Russia deal with it sooner? Don't even get me started on the US, Britain, France, Germany (+rest of G8s) own problem with human rights issues, discrimination and exploitation. All traded and forced people into slavery, imperialism, exterminate native people, cultures. Just where do you think most of the war torn countries in the world (e.g Syria) get their weapons and funds from? Britain practically robbed all the treasures around the world and put it in a Museum call it British Museum (Full of civilisation treasures from Athen, Egypt/Middle East, China/SE Asia and else where in the world.) What about current invasion of privacy and personal liberty on a massive subversive global scale, entirely government condoned and supported. Oh but lets make sure we distract everybody's attention and blame scary uprising China while letting China to bail out all our bad debts and distract from our own sins.

I don't even want to start with Japan's ugly past war atrocities that went largely unpunished and unrepented till this day. Guess what, they hosted the Olympics games 4 times! The hypocrisy of buying the west's goodwill with the stolen money from the rest of the Asia while stuffing Uncle Sams+cousins banks with gold bullions stolen from Asia's treasure is one of the biggest blatant hypocrisy around. Swiss is always neutral therefore they are the best and safe choice right? (Oh but guess where are all the Nazi money stashed? Or how about where do you think every criminal/corrupted politicians keep their laundered/stolen/kickbacks money? Hmm...) Want to look at a monster? Just look in a mirror. Human nature. The capacity for good and bad, kindness and cruelty, beauty and ugly aren't that much different between nations. The rest are just marketing, disguising and self delusion.

The sad and ugly truth is ALL countries have ugly skeletons in their closets but proportionately China certainly has been the biggest scapegoat and distraction from G8's own sins in the western press.

os168 said:

The sad and ugly truth is ALL countries have ugly skeleton's in their closets

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Thank you!

os168 said:

Oh please give me a break.... just because it may be hosted in a nation that is one of the 'good ole boys', all the problems wouldn't have suddenly gone away. Having it in a controversial place actually pushes the rest of the world to face the ugly issues and hopefully force the country for change. 'Hope' is all you can ask for if one is to be realistic. The legacy of of a global sport event is that it has the potential to bring peace and solidarity for 2 weeks at least with moments of reflection while paying attention.

Take Sochi for example. Russia invaded Ukraine the very next week after the main Olympics before ParaOlympics even finishes? With out the Olympics, would Russia deal with it sooner? Don't even get me started on the US, Britain, France, Germany (+rest of G8s) own problem with human rights issues, discrimination and exploitation. All traded and forced people into slavery, imperialism, exterminate native people, cultures. Just where do you think most of the war torn countries in the world (e.g Syria) get their weapons and funds from? Britain practically robbed all the treasures around the world and put it in a Museum call it British Museum (Full of civilisation treasures from Athen, Egypt/Middle East, China/SE Asia and else where in the world.) What about current invasion of privacy and personal liberty on a massive subversive global scale, entirely governments condone and supported. Oh but lets make sure we distract everybody's attention and blame scary uprising China while letting China to bail out all our bad debts and distract from our own sins.

I don't even want to start with Japan's ugly past war atrocities that went largely unpunished and unrepented till this day. Guess what, they hosted the Olympics games 4 times! The hypocrisy of buying the west's goodwill with the stolen money from the rest of the Asia while stuffing Uncle Sams+cousins banks with gold bullions stolen from Asia's treasure is one of the biggest blatant hypocrisy around. Swiss is always neutral therefore they are the best and safe choice right? (Oh but guess where are all the Nazi money stashed? Or how about where do you think every criminal/corrupted politicians keep their laundered/stolen/kickbacks money? Hmm...) Want to look at a monster? Just look in a mirror. Human nature. The capacity for good and bad, kindness and cruelty, beauty and ugly aren't that much different between nations. The rest are just marketing, disguising and self delusion.

The sad and ugly truth is ALL countries have ugly skeletons in their closets but proportionately China certainly has been the biggest scapegoat and distraction from G8's own sins in the western press.

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What's really distracting and pointless is excusing the poor human rights standards of some countries TODAY based on ridiculous comparisons with other countries as they were decades or centuries ago. You think today's Japan is the same as WWII era Japan? Nonsense. You think London in 2012 is the same London of Victorian times? Honestly, I don't know where to start. Of course all countries have some aspects of their history that are negative, but some countries have significant human rights problems in the HERE and NOW. And whatever problems with discrimination that exist in the countries you cite (UK, Germany, France) pale in comparison to the state-sanctioned programs in place in the Russia of 2014 and the China of 2008. The very notion that the collections of the British Museum undermine the Olympics in London as much as the state-endorsed pogroms against LGBTs in Russia is just moronic. So is the idea that "ALL countries have skeletons in their closet", as if we could say Sweden and Saudi Arabia are somehow equally flawed in this regard.

Ummm, not to be too ignorant, but where in the Beijing area would they host the mountain events?

This is such a pathetic and sad situation overall. Another winter Olympics that will be nearly impossible for anyone to consider owing to travel hassles and inevitably cost.

GGoldberg said:

Ummm, not to be too ignorant, but where in the Beijing area would they host the mountain events?

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That was my question as well. I didn't think they even had a mountain range within a couple of hours of the city.

Maybe they'll do a joint bid with a nearby ski resort city, like Vancouver-Whistler. Whistler proper is about two hours' drive from Vancouver and had its own village. Sochi had the Krasnodar region for the mountain events and its own village as well. Same model for Beijing?

I'm wondering why Austria hadn't stepped in. Salzburg put together a convincing bid for 2014 initially but lost out. Didn't they pre-build a lot of the venues in anticipation of the bid, so that when the voting happened they would have to do very little (comparatively) to get the place ready?

CaroLiza_fan said:

Surely it would have been fairer to award them to one of the other bidders, as none of them had hosted any Olympics before. Especially if they selected Turkey, since there has never been an Olympics in the Middle East.

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Istanbul was undergoing political unrest and violent riots in June 2013 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013–14_protests_in_Turkey), which was about 2 months away from the date when the IOC selected the host of the 2020 SOG. Istanbul was actually far and away the premier frontrunner for 2020 until the riots began. And Madrid was (and still is) fairing with the failing Spanish economy that convinced that IOC that Tokyo was the most stable and least risky of the three candidate cities.

GGoldberg said:

Ummm, not to be too ignorant, but where in the Beijing area would they host the mountain events?

This is such a pathetic and sad situation overall. Another winter Olympics that will be nearly impossible for anyone to consider owing to travel hassles and inevitably cost.

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They'll be held in Zhangjiakou, which is about 3 hours north of Beijing.

And that last question is one of the reasons why the IOC is such trash. This cluster will see an exponential rise in living costs forcing the poorer people living there to move out because they cannot afford it.

The IOC is one of the most corrupt organizations in the world...and almost all members are already obscenely wealthy making their absurd requests even more galling...not to mention that it's almost impossible to get a ticket to the figure skating events because of all the tickets that are given away to the sponsors and IOC members. Unfortunately I do enjoy watching and the rewards are still great for participants...but in my mind attending nationals and/or worlds is really the way to go...

os168: Beijing is also the only modern Olympics, as far as I know, where the host nation refused to provide security for and actually threatened the safety of another nation's competitor. Cadel Evans' sin? He wore a "Free Tibet" t-shirt in a race before the Olympics. The AOC had to provide a security detachment for Cadel since they were told by the Beijing organisers that they "could not guarantee his safety".

Allow me to reiterate that: Cadel was threatened and refused security, not because he was violent, not because he was a terrorist, not because he threatened anybody, but because he wore a T-SHIRT expressing an opinion on China's actions in Tibet. Two words, and the Chinese officials threatened him and refused to guard his safety.

Oh, but they got their revenge in another, more petty way, too. When Cadel's family attempted to make their way to the finish area for the road race, they were refused entry, in spite of their valid tickets.

^^sorry to hear that, so dirty. Against sportsmanship. But then again, Olympic is always about politics.

MalloryArcher said:

What's really distracting and pointless is excusing the poor human rights standards of some countries TODAY based on ridiculous comparisons with other countries as they were decades or centuries ago. You think today's Japan is the same as WWII era Japan? Nonsense. You think London in 2012 is the same London of Victorian times? Honestly, I don't know where to start. Of course all countries have some aspects of their history that are negative, but some countries have significant human rights problems in the HERE and NOW. And whatever problems with discrimination that exist in the countries you cite (UK, Germany, France) pale in comparison to the state-sanctioned programs in place in the Russia of 2014 and the China of 2008. The very notion that the collections of the British Museum undermine the Olympics in London as much as the state-endorsed pogroms against LGBTs in Russia is just moronic. So is the idea that "ALL countries have skeletons in their closet", as if we could say Sweden and Saudi Arabia are somehow equally flawed in this regard.

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Where did I EVER excuse poor human rights records? There's simply no excuse for it. Any time Any where.

However it is also necessary to see things with a well balanced view instead of the typical "name and shame" finger pointing accusations anytime China is brought up anywhere. These statements simply stench of hypocrisy. China is a country of 1.4 billion people, do you think it is possible proportionally it will naturally suffer from more human right problems than many other countries combined? It is a country undergoing rapid pace of transformation from deep poverty from merely a few decades ago and neglect from the rest of the world. For things to improve, it take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was US or Britain without undergoing some major transformation including learning from their mistakes and atrocities.

I do wonder which countries have bigger deteriorating human rights issues, and which have improving human rights issues? Take the big brother: US for example. President Carter declared the following in an NY Times article not so long ago.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/25/opinion/americas-shameful-human-rights-record.html?_r=0

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.

Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.

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It seems to me the "naming and shaming" of human rights against China has become more of a political ploy, entirely self serving by the west that often neglecting their own set of problems in their backyards as well as their numerous dirty laundries in other people's yards. The last time I checked US citizens do still suffers from racial discrimination at certain state run facilities/law/prisons. Instead you don't see people discount the US in its entirely by its very worst failings?

Human rights issues ARE important everywhere not just when it is convenient. US do still suffers from human right issues of gun violence, poverty, lack of healthcare, education for the vulnerable and poor, possible racial discriminations at certain pockets of US, NSA surveillance -anti privacy in the land of the free, lack of accountability or transparency like to its own citizen as well as foreign, Guantanomo bay comes to mind. Does all these 'failings' invalidate US as a great country to host the games? No...

Let me turn around, do you think an event like the Olympics can improving human rights issues? I think it can. And even it doesn't, what is the harm in trying? Do you really think the world wide media will pretend human rights problems will all of a sudden gone away for the 2 weeks if China is selected to host the games? You clearly haven't been following reports at Beijing Summer games, or even Sochi.

Actually I have no preference on where to host the games, since having a world view does mean you give everyone benefit of the doubt and treat everyone fairly without prejudices.

os168 said:

Where did I EVER excuse poor human rights records? There's simply no excuse for it. Any time Any where.

However it is also necessary to see things with a well balanced view instead of the typical "name and shame" finger pointing accusations anytime China is brought up anywhere. These statements simply stench of hypocrisy. China is a country of 1.4 billion people, do you think it is possible proportionally it will naturally suffer from more human right problems than many other countries combined? It is a country undergoing rapid pace of transformation from deep poverty from merely a few decades ago and neglect from the rest of the world. For things to improve, it take time. Rome wasn't built in a day, nor was US or Britain without undergoing some major transformation including learning from their mistakes and atrocities.

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Mistakes?

Torture of innocents, including psychiatric and medical torture; gulags, urban-rural apartheid, famine, civil oppression, effective wage slavery, effective femicide etc etc etc - were not adopted by the socialists by "mistake." There were deliberately and intentionally design to oppress the population and enrich and empower the Chinese elite, especially at expense of the rural poor (people forget outside of glitzy Shanghai the vast majority of the population is barely eking out a living on a quarter-acre of rice paddy).

And here in lies the difference between the egregious actions of the U.S. government, and the far worse actions of the Chinese government. Most of the problems in Western governments do not arise from a desire to intentionally do harm to its citizens - this is precisely the opposite of Chinese state's policies. As much as I might disagree with NSA surveillance, the intention of the act is not to monitor my traffic for views on anti-government websites so government goons can ship me off to the gulag. This is why comparisons are ridiculous - not simply because there is an order-of-magnitude difference in violations of human dignity and rights, but because the intention of the acts is radically different.

Edit: For the record, I don't really care where the Olympics are. It's a ridiculous boondoggle anyway.

Now that this thread is firmly heading down the slagging off countries route, and the moderators have consequently had the sense to move it to the politics forum, I am going to retire from this discussion.

But I just want to clarify my position before I leave.

MalloryArcher said:

The ISU ignores human rights issues at their peril right now. Beijing, Sochi and likely Rio 2016 have all been marred by the poor HR standards set by these governments. Why should we honour and praise these countries (or allow them to honour and praise themselves) in lavish opening ceremonies etc. when they are so clearly not forces for good in the world at this time. I would find the idea of a Kazakhstan games deeply troubling for this reason. China, not really much better. What's more, there are serious security risks with staging a games in Turkey right now, which as you must know borders some seriously unstable countries.

I think, as selections go, the most recent games usually influence the next selection quite strongly. Remember, the IOC chose Athens in 1997 to try and class-up the Games by returning to the roots and history of the Olympics, one year after the overly commercialized, tacky ho-down in Atlanta. After Athens and the myriad of problems associated with construction and delays, in 2005 the IOC chose London which already had most of its sporting stadiums and infrastructure built. The biggest takeaway from Sochi is that dishing out Olympic Games to countries with poor human rights records and significant corruption problems no longer flies so well. We will feel this again with Rio, most likely. So I think the IOC will look at the bids and decide which of the two terrible human rights records, China or Kazakhstan, is the lesser of two evils. And which of the two has a better record with corruption. My money is on China.

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Don’t get me wrong, MalloryArcher, I do not agree with the abuse of human rights either.

But, let’s face it, there are few, if any, countries in the world that haven’t had human rights issues.

Take the countries that have held more than 2 Olympic Games:

America has held 8 Games (4 Summer, 4 Winter)
France has held 5 Games (2 Summer, 3 Winter)
Japan has held 4 Games (2 Summer*, 2 Winter)
Britain has held 3 Games (3 Summer)
Germany has held 3 Games (2 Summer, 1 Winter)
Italy has held 3 Games (1 Summer, 2 Winter)
Canada has held 3 Games (1 Summer, 2 Winter)

* Including the upcoming 2020 Summer Games.

I don’t know about Canada’s human rights record, but I can’t imagine it being too bad. But when you take into consideration all that has happened in the past 200 years, the other countries listed have some of the worst human rights records possible!

If a good human rights record were a criteria for hosting the Olympics, then only the odd Pacific island would be eligible. And they couldn’t afford to hold an event on this scale.

The IOC have realised this, and so do not take human rights into consideration when selecting a host. Consequently, I have not been taking it into consideration in this discussion.

Instead, I have been judging the awarding of Olympic Games on how they have been distributed across the world. And making out the above list has made it even more clear how unfair the awarding of Olympic Games has been.

Like, I know America is a big country, and is the only real world superpower left. But for a single country to host a total of EIGHT Games, and to top the list for both Summer and Winter Games, is unbelievable. Frankly, it’s scandalous. If it were any other country, there would be public uproar. And probably an investigation into corruption at the IOC.

Yet there are people in this thread that are saying that America needs to host more Games?!

For goodness sake, each of the countries on my list have held more Games than 4 other continents combined!

Australia has only held 2 Olympics (1956 Summer and 2000 Summer)
South America will shortly hold their first Olympics (2016 Summer)
Africa has never held an Olympics
Antarctica has never held an Olympics

I know including Antarctica is pushing the argument to it’s extreme, but it fits the point I’m trying to make.

The Olympic Games is a global event. Therefore, everywhere in the globe should have the opportunity to host them.

And, even though we all know it does, politics should not come into sport.

CaroLiza_fan

Even Canada has had significant human rights issues.

Canada, like the US, had horrific human rights violations of its First Nations people.

The treatment of first Nations children at church-run Indian schools was particularly heinous.
https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/canada/oh-canada

By some estimates, 50,000 children died in those schools, out of 100,000 who attended. To make matters worse, there is evidence that in many schools the death rates had a helping hand. Dr. Peter Bryce, the chief medical officer for the Department of Indian Affairs, conducted a survey of the residential schools in 1909 and issued a report in which he said, “I believe the conditions are being deliberately created in our residential schools to spread infectious diseases. It is not unusual for children who are dying from consumption to be admitted to schools and housed alongside healthy children.”

As alarming as Bryce’s findings were, the response from the government was even more so. After reading the report, Indian Superintendent Duncan Scott wrote to a colleague about it, using language that is now chillingly familiar: “It is readily acknowledged that Indian children lose their natural resistance to illness by habitating so closely in these schools, and that they die at a much higher rate than in their villages. But this alone does not justify a change in the policy of this department, which is geared towards the final solution of our Indian Problem.”

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It is because, IMO, all humankind is so prone to human rights violations that is important to speak out against them. Light needs to be shined onto all these crimes. We must acknowledge the wrongs we have done before reparation and progress can be made.

The crimes of other countries does not excuse Chinese human rights violations. But those fighting against such things must acknowledge no country's hands are clean.

The world did not end because China hosted an Olympics. And it won't if it hosts another Olympics.

In the end, the Olympics is a sports event, not a world peace convention. IMO. But my hope is that we can learn to acknowledge each other's common humanity by participating in sports and sports fandom together.

As far as TV revenue is concerned, though, the Winter Olympics is holding its own. According to Forbes magazine, the Sochi Olympics came in at #3 on the list of most valuable commercial sports brands.

1. Suoer Bowl: $US 500 million
2. Summer Olympics: $348 million
3. Winter Olympics: $285 million
4. World Cup: $ 190 million (this must count only US revenues)
5. Final Four college basketball: $143

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/mlm45fhklg/3-olympic-games-winter/