Post-Olympic Abandonment

Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by cannonpr on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @10:34AM (#13706220)

Let's say that I have some direct experience, both with working within the Olympics games and with Greece. I don't honestly want that cesspool anywhere near Greece, the level of corruption and incompetence I witnessed by the olympic organisations and committees is staggering. The best thing you could do at this point is to stop the games and distribute the funds to healthier or new organisations.

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by StavrosK on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @11:04AM (#13706485)

Well, they would fit right in, but you're right, we're trying to have less corruption. I wonder if we can force the IOC to rename the games to something else, maybe they can buy a private island somewhere and host them there in isolation, for whomever wants to attend.

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by sand500 on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @02:22PM (#13708362)

Build stadiums on a couple of old oil tankers and accompanying cruise ships?

Is there any country that matters that doesn't have easy water access? Russia?

Also same deal for Winter Olympics since there's a lot of water up there?

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by cannonpr on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @11:15AM (#13706562)

I won't argue that they would fit right in with any government Greece has had since Kapodistrias. However there are a lot of good people in Greece right now trying to turn the situation around, the Olympic games of the past made things even harder for them, I would hate to see it land on their lap again... They seems to bring the worst out in people.

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by saalweachter on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @11:22AM (#13706622)

It's possible that, even though it'd be nice for historicity / tradition, the Games just aren't a good fit for Greece.

But one of the things that turning the Games from a maybe-just-once event for a city/country to a recurring relationship does, is that it changes the nature of the profiteering.

A one-time-only event encourages profiteers to cut as deeply as they can can and really screw their customers -- no repeat sales are possible.

A recurring event still presents a large profit opportunity, but the recurrence encourages more cooperative profiteering. Contractors who don't come through or who overcharge beyond the pale don't get the repeat business.

(Of course, this doesn't always happen, and long-term graft is definitely a thing, but at least there's a possibility things might be different with a permanent venue.)

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by StavrosK on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @01:08PM (#13707615)

Even for tradition, the games in antiquity were much different from today's games. They used to be about the sport, whereas today they're about money (which is hard not to do when they're this popular, granted).

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by afarrell on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @01:44PM (#13707985)

Who organised the original games and provided the infrastructure for them and how much were they paid vs whipped?

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Re:Post-Olympic Abandonment by cannonpr on Wednesday February 22, 2017 @05:32PM (#13709874)

Original games were organised by the city states and were primarily a means of showing off their best potential soldiers, though it served several other reasons as well, like most things it got complex. Fun fact, even though there was meant to be an Olympic truce, it was a much favored time to backstab your neighbour since lots of cities didn't expect it and as usual the victors wrote the books.

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