# Olympic politics and favoritism...



## billc (Jul 28, 2012)

In the London Olympics, how does one athlete accused of racism get kicked out and a group of athletes who are anti-semitic simply get their demands met?  If these two stories are true, it just points to another reason the olympics are silly...

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2012/07/in-defense-more-or-less-of-a-banned-triple-jumper.php



> Miss Papachristou was summarily dropped from the Greek Olympic team, with no opportunity to be heard, because of a tweet that everyone describes as racist. Yahoo News headlines: &#8220;Banned Greek triple jumper &#8216;bitter and upset&#8217; after racist tweet gets her kicked out of Olympics.&#8221; The Huffington Post goes Yahoo one better, alleging multiple tweets: &#8220;Greece Expels Voula Papachristou From Olympics Over Racist Tweets.&#8221;





> In fact, there was only one tweet. Here it is:With so many Africans in Greece, the West Nile mosquitoes will be getting home food!!!​Now, that may be silly or even stupid, and I guess it is sort of ethnic. But how is it racist? It says nothing bad about Africans, who, in any event, are of multiple races. If she made the same crack about athletes from Hong Kong and the Hong Kong flu, would that be racist? Why?
> Yahoo News suggests that it doesn&#8217;t really matter:Papachristou can be angry, but she can&#8217;t be surprised. When you make a statement that touches on race or religion or gender in a controversial way, the hammer can be dropped quickly. Even if her tweet wasn&#8217;t racist, it was perceived that way and that may as well be the same thing.​But it isn&#8217;t the same thing. False perceptions are legion, but you shouldn&#8217;t summarily kick an athlete off an Olympic team because of an assertion that isn&#8217;t true.





> The Greek Olympic Committee seems to have been influenced by the fact that Papachristou is an adherent of the Golden Dawn party, which is conventionally described as &#8220;far right&#8221; and even &#8220;neo-fascist.&#8221; Such descriptions generally should be taken with a grain of salt in Europe, where &#8220;far right&#8221; is often synonymous with &#8220;not certain that uncontrolled immigration is a desirable thing.&#8221; But in the case of Golden Dawn, it appears that the party is unsavory at best. Still, it got 7% of the vote in Greece&#8217;s recent election, so if voting for Golden Dawn makes one ineligible for the Olympic team, we are talking about a lot of Greeks.
> But here is my real point: let&#8217;s assume the worst. Let&#8217;s assume that Golden Dawn truly is a neo-fascist party. It can&#8217;t possibly be more violent, soul-crushing, tyrannical or hateful than Cuba&#8217;s Communist Party. Yet boxer Teofilo Stevenson, who was unfailingly and vocally loyal to Fidel Castro&#8217;s police state, is one of the great Olympic heroes of modern times. If Stevenson&#8217;s misguided loyalty to Communism didn&#8217;t disqualify him from being an Olympic hero, why should Papachristou&#8217;s misguided adherence to Golden Dawn disqualify her from competing?


And then this group apparently had their demands met...

http://www.algemeiner.com/2012/07/2...demands-barrier-separation-from-israel-squad/



> The Lebanese judo team forced International Olympic Committee officials to erect a barrier between themselves and the Israeli judo squad, Friday afternoon in London, just hours before the Games&#8217; opening ceremony, reports Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot.
> Both teams were scheduled to train inside London&#8217;s ExCeL center but Lebanon&#8217;s team did not want to be seen by the Israeli one, and IOC officials heeded to the Lebanese&#8217;s demand after the team&#8217;s coach demanded separation.
> This is not the first time Middle Eastern judo teams have caused a political stir.  In February, Egypt&#8217;s Ramadan Dawris defeated Arik Zeevi of Israel, but afterwards, Dawris refused to shake the hand of his competitor.



From Reuters on the Judo story...

http://news.yahoo.com/israeli-olympic-team-says-lebanese-judo-fighters-refuse-193000562--spt.html



> Olympic officials were forced to erect a screen betweenLebanon's and Israel's judo fighters on Friday after the Lebanese refused to train on the same mat, the Israeli Olympic team said on Friday.
> The incident arose after Lebanon's two judokas found themselves next to the five Israelis during practice at the official training venue in Redbridge, in east London, said Nitzan Ferraro, spokesman for the Israeli Olympic Committee.
> "We started to practice. They came and they saw us - they didn't like it and they went to the organizers," Feraro told Reuters. "They put up some kind of wall between us. Everyone went on and there was no interaction between us."
> The Lebanese Olympic Committee could not immediately be reached for comment.
> ...


Now, if these stories are true, how does the one athlete get banned and the others not?

And another point made in the first article...



> Stevenson, of course, is just one example out of many. In fact, throughout the Cold War, Olympic officials generally favored Communist athletes over free ones. The most notorious example of the Olympics&#8217; pro-Communist bias was the Soviets&#8217; &#8220;victory&#8221; in the 1972 gold medal basketball game, but other instances could be multiplied just about endlessly.
> And we haven&#8217;t even touched on the political views of athletes from Arab countries. Some of those athletes are no doubt paragons of tolerance, but do you suppose that the political attitudes of all such athletes would survive scrutiny? The International Olympic Committee won&#8217;t even authorize a minute of silence in honor of Israeli athletes who were murdered by Arab terrorists _at the Olympics, in part as a result of lax security by the Olympics. What does that tell you?_


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## elder999 (Jul 28, 2012)

In one instance, we have an Olympian being sanctioned by _her home country_ and their Olympic committee for behavior that they found unacceptable. In another, we see Olympians being asshats in a way that their home country finds acceptable-as for why the International Olympic committee chooses to accomodate them, who knows?  In any case, there is no bias on the part of the INternational Committee here, only on the part of your sources, billi.....


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## granfire (Jul 28, 2012)

elder999 said:


> In one instance, we have an Olympian being sanctioned by _her home country_ and their Olympic committee for behavior that they found unacceptable. In another, we see Olympians being asshats in a way that their home country finds acceptable-as for why the International Olympic committee chooses to accomodate them, who knows?  In any case, there is no bias on the part of the INternational Committee here, only on the part of your sources, billi.....



Considering that Greece is broke, maybe they liked the chance of saving one ticket...

As to the Judo thing, the article seemed to imply that those screens are at hand anyhow for competitions lest the teams spy on each other....might not even have been a 'racial' thing, and not a real 'we don't want to look at them' but a 'we don't want them to look at us'


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## billc (Jul 28, 2012)

Yeahhh...I'm sure that's the reason...:rofl:


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## billc (Jul 28, 2012)

Celebrating the deteriorating NHS at the olympics...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...ing-ceremony-NHS-disgracefully-glorified.html



> Sitting in a home somewhere while fireworks lit up the Olympics Opening Ceremony would have been the family of Kane Gorny.
> 
> They watched their cherished teenage son die of thirst at the hands of incompetent doctors and nurses.
> 
> Kane was a promising footballer with a bright future ahead of him until he was admitted to hospital.






> Within a day he was dead. Dead because NHS hospital staff refused to give a sick man a glass of water. We are not talking some powerful prescription drug. Just a small glass of tap water.





> How does the family of Kane &#8211; and indeed the thousands of others we have heard of and the many more we haven&#8217;t &#8211; feel when they see the NHS being shamefully glorified at the biggest sporting bonanza in the world?
> 
> Sick to the stomach, I imagine.





> The letters &#8216;NHS&#8217; dazzled in bright red, like some triumphant advert. All around pranced self-indulgent nurses who had volunteered to take a few days off to be part of the ceremony.
> 
> Children lay in their beds as Mary Poppins figures danced and JK Rowling read some bedtime tales.
> 
> ...



Besides the outrage, if the story is true, the real question is...Why would you put the NHS in an Olympic kick off ceremony anyway?  I guess one answer would be to the left, it is one part of their secular religion and so they put it in there to honor it.


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## granfire (Jul 28, 2012)

billcihak said:


> Celebrating the deteriorating NHS at the olympics...
> 
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/a...ing-ceremony-NHS-disgracefully-glorified.html
> 
> ...




'IF'

yes....if

I am sure they celebrated the NHS just to get your goat though.


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## billc (Jul 28, 2012)

How much is it going to cost the average British subject to bask in olympic glory?

http://dailycaller.com/2012/07/27/fools-gold-british-taxpayer-is-olympics-biggest-loser/



> Simply bidding for the Olympics cost London a cool $25 million. Proponents saw that as money well spent given that no other sporting event draws more visitors from so many parts of the globe nor so visibly showcases the host city. It was assumed that the Olympics would bring London enormous economic benefits.





> For the 2012 Games, London originally estimated total costs at $4.7 billion. Within two years, the official estimate had risen to $15 billion, more than triple the cost at the time of the 2005 bid. As significant private funding never materialized, $15 billion in British taxpayer money was hurriedly allocated to pay for these Olympics.





> With the UK National Audit Office revealing that private-sector funding now constitutes less than two percent of the Olympic budget, the UK parliamentary Public Accounts Committee has predicted total costs around $18 billion. Worse still, an analysis by the Sky Sports TV network, which included the costs of upgrading public transportation, now puts the cost of the Olympics at a staggering $38.5 billion!
> This financial calamity should not come as a surprise. Ballooning budgets and debt burdens are always the most likely Olympic outcome.





> The Chinese government budgeted $14.2 billion but spent $40 billion on the 2008 Beijing Games. The 2004 Athens Olympics costs ten times the original estimate of $1.6 billion. A decade earlier, Spanish taxpayers were left $6.1 billion in the hole at the conclusion of the 1992 Barcelona Games.
> And, it was three decades before the $2.7 billion owed from the 1976 Montreal Olympics was paid off. Montreal had followed the disastrous 1972 Munich Games that, in addition to the tragic loss of life, cost German taxpayers $687 million.



All that money spent, and lost, so that pampered athletes from dictatorships and tyrannies can compete against western democracies and win gold medals in events like this...


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## granfire (Jul 28, 2012)

25 million?
Petty cash. The biggest city near me LOST 50 million from the educational budget alone...

And you can ask the city of Dixon, Illinois, I believe, their comptroller woman embezzled about 50 million over the last at least 15 years....seems they never missed it....

Billions? Well, the money spend went somewhere.....


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## Tez3 (Jul 29, 2012)

I see from Gran's post that Bili is having a poke at the UK again...ah where's all those who say a non American can't comment on American affairs now? Seems it's fine for an American to comment on ours but heaven forfend when a Brit even mentions something American, there's quite, to be polite, strong slagging off done by certain Americans. Not a peep out of them here though. No lets just slag the UK off shall we but thanks to Granfire for her sense though.

Oh the Daily Mail, the seeing eye of the Conservative party whose chief shareholder and boss doesn't even pay UK tax, who had to testify at the Leveson enquiry into press misbehaviour, out of which several criminal charges have come and it turns out he has a illegitimate son. The Daily Mail is the tabloid newspaper that has hounded several innocent people and is know for being the paper that supported Hitler and the Nazi party. They actually suppoted financially the Black shirts in London led by Mosley. They have done little since to change their stance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Harmsworth,_4th_Viscount_Rothermere

What is being said about the opening ceremony http://menmedia.co.uk/manchestereve...ws-for-danny-boyles-olympics-opening-ceremony

Now the thing is, it's our money not America's, it's our city not America's, it's our NHS, not America's so if you don't mind old chap, wind your neck in.

Now I shall wait for all those who want to have a Tez and Brit bash..oh GOSH I'm being defensive again, all my friends will hate me... 

GOSH...Great Ormand Street Hospital btw way, saving childrens lives since 1852.


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## elder999 (Jul 29, 2012)

billcihak said:


> How much is it going to cost the average British subject to bask in olympic glory?
> 
> All that money spent, and lost, so that pampered athletes from dictatorships and tyrannies can compete against western democracies and win gold medals in events like this...



billi, billi, billi.....Quite honestly, one would almost think that somebody was always picked last in gym class or something.....:lol:

Seriously, though-I don't know what it is you really have against the Olympics, and don't care, but I think you're so far off base here that you're out in the parking lot instead of even in the bleachers-never mind on the ball field. :lol: (See what I did there? :lfao

Back in 2002, we hosted a very successful Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City-something _your_ presumptive candidate was responsible for-he did a really, really good job with the WInter Olympics in their most populous area ever, and just a year after 9/11-in fact, because of 9/11 I got to attend and be part of those Olympics. I've been back to the Olympic Village in Salt Lake City since then, and it's a very profitable piece of real estate for the city. 

Likewise, London and England are gambling-and that's what it is, a gamble-that these Olympics will prove profitable for them-they've revitalized an area of London that was mostly a decrepit industrial area, and turned into something beautiful-that they're hoping will be useful and profitable for them after the Olympics are over, and I, for one, hope that they're successful.

As for the Olympics themselves, vis a vis "pampered athletes from dictatorships," well, that's part of the purpose of the modern Olympics, after all, to demonstrate, through the _fellowship_ of sport, that most of us just aren't that different-despite our differences. Of course, some of us can't let go of our ideological myopia-something some _here, on the Study_ ( :lfao: ) might do well to pay attention to..........


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## billc (Jul 29, 2012)

That's right, you didn't see my post Tez where I welcomed your comments on the U.S.  Also, mentioned were China and Athens.  It would go to Romney's credit that it seems as though he is one of the few who may have made money on the olympics, most of the time they are a financial disaster for the taxpayers, but not the local parasites.


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## Tez3 (Jul 29, 2012)

I'm watching the men's boxing, some very poor countries are competing in this and for them the competition could lead on to very big things.. it's Panama v Puerta Rico at the moment. 

The Olympics has already done a lot for the country, yes you will read about the problems but hey that's us we work better under pressure, we really do 'keep calm and carry on', that's us, we know everything will work out. Is the NHS in trouble? well the Conservatives are trying to deal it a blow but they always do, the NHS itself is brilliant, it's the government that's wrong. Loads of money been spent? well you should have seen the site before the Olympic village etc was built. A lot of the venues aren't new in fact quite a few were built before America was discovered let alone became a country lol.
If you can tear your eyes away from the girls at the beach volleyball in Horseguards Parade you can think of Henry the Eight joisting there and Elizabeth the First having her birthday party. If you watch the rowing at Eton Dorney you can remember that it's the school grounds of Eton which has been there for six centuries. Greenwich Park where the Dressage is being held has been a park since 1433. The point is we have survived this long, we survive by being us, we will go long after others have gone like the USSR and the Third Reich. The Bili's of this world can whinge, wail and criticise as much as they like but we'll still be going strong....as the top Olympic chap pointed out at the opening ceremony this country is the home of fair play and sportsmanship.. that's pretty cool. Beside that we have one of the greatest virtues know to man...the ability to laugh at ourselves, even the Queen can do it.


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## Tez3 (Jul 29, 2012)

Well, well, well, it seems the Daily Fail changed it's NHS/Olympic story when it realised it had misjudged the public's mood on this. 

http://botherer.org/2012/07/28/the-daily-mail-and-how-an-nhs-death-means-racism-is-fine/


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## Big Don (Jul 29, 2012)

Sorry, but, when I think of the UK, the NHS isn't in the top 50 or so things I think of, and it was included, why?


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## granfire (Jul 29, 2012)

Big Don said:


> Sorry, but, when I think of the UK, the NHS isn't in the top 50 or so things I think of, and it was included, why?






To mess with billie's head of course.....


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## billc (Jul 29, 2012)

What I am mad about is that if Chicago had gotten the olympics, they were planning on incorporating a tribute to the Department of Motor Vehicles through the history of the United States.  Now that would have been a fine piece of showmanship.


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## Tez3 (Jul 30, 2012)

Just been readng that Americans weren't 'allowed' to watch the opening ceremony live and when they did get to see the recording much had been edited out including the tribute to the 7/7 victims. This is down it seems to NBC. While we watched everything live, it's on Europort's three channels and the BBC has over 24 live channels showing everything Americans couldn't watch the American basketball 'dreamtieam' nor Micheal Phelps swimming! 
When it does show anything the commentators get it very wrong describing the English countryside as full of 'chateaus' and a map on NBC's website of Australia describing it as"_ located in central Europe bordered to the north by Germany and the Czech Republic to the west by Switzerland". _The commentators went on to make fun of the countries during the flaf parade, called Autralia a former penal colony and said they'd never heard of Tim Berners-Lee the Briton who created the internet.


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## billc (Jul 30, 2012)

Is this story true?  Are they not seeking the best, but trying to help everyone win a medal by cutting down the number of winners a country can have in an event?

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/...ympic-Committee-To-Give-Every-Country-a-Medal



> [h=2]As the U.S. women's gymnastic team competed in the Olympics on Sunday, the encroaching egalitarianism of the international games was readily apparent. The rules committee has decided only two members of each team can advance to the all-around, meaning that even if one team is predominant above all others it can only have equal representation in the all-around at best.[/h]What this also means is that Jordyn Wieber, "the reigning world champion in the all-around and a favorite to win Olympic-gold," will not be allowed take part in that round because she finished 3rd among the U.S. women's team on Sunday.
> But what if Wieber's 3rd place score was higher than the first place score received by a team member from another country? Technically it could happen, but the rules committee guards against it by erasing the scores of each individual gymnast once the two advancing team members have been decided.
> To put it as one of the Olympic correspondents did on Sunday night, "it's like it never even happened."
> _This is not just an issue for Americans_. Rather, it's an issue for any team that might have three or perhaps even four members excel instead of just two. As such, it is a perfect microcosm of the problems posed by political correctness, and particularly by egalitarianism. For in a bid to be sure every country gets to advance, some of the best gymnasts will be forced to sit this one out.


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## dancingalone (Jul 30, 2012)

Bela Karolyi was all over this rule on TV Sunday, saying it's not a good or fair one.   Regardless, it's the rule coming into the Olympics that every country competed under, so it's not like US Olympic officials should feel blindsided by it.

I can remember a time when gymnastics was dominated by the Warsaw Pact nations and the chances of 3 Americans placing in the top 4 all-around qualies were nonexistent.  I wonder how long this rule has been in effect and if we complained previously in a time when it would have benefited us.


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## granfire (Jul 30, 2012)

I am sure Karoli has cussed about that rule many times before, when his Romanian girls were affected...
yeah, that's why they put it in effect I bet, to have more than the Russian or Romanian girls competing. 
It's sucks for her, but there are thousands of girls who are not in London right now....


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## Carol (Jul 30, 2012)

granfire said:
			
		

> yeah, that's why they put it in effect I bet, to have more than the Russian or Romanian girls competing.



Bingo.

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Olym...ould-Jordyn-Wieber-be-in-the-all-around-final



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk HD


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## billc (Jul 30, 2012)

Well, after using the Troll term a poster on the rec room side of this thread said this...



> Part of humanity is the pursuit of physical and athletic excellence...That is what the Olympics is all about.



Apparently, with this rule about only two people from each country being allowed to go foward, regardless of their "...Physical and athletic excellence..." the olympics are no longer about "...physical and athletic excellence..." and are about fairness to under achievers...



> But what if Wieber's 3rd place score was higher than the first place score received by a team member from another country? Technically it could happen, but the rules committee guards against it by erasing the scores of each individual gymnast once the two advancing team members have been decided.


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## Grenadier (Jul 31, 2012)

Folks, 

Feel free to attack the message, but remember, attacking the bearer of the message isn't allowed in this forum.  This includes intentional mis-spellings of people's names.  

There are plenty of ways to make your argument more substantial.  Personal attacks aren't amongst them.


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## ballen0351 (Jul 31, 2012)

Its kinda like the MLB all star rules where every team sends someone even if your team stinks like my orioles they still get to send someone taking the spot of a better player on a different team. Stupid rule should be the best it should not matter if the 8 best come from 2 countries. Cheapened the competition if you as me.


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## CanuckMA (Jul 31, 2012)

It's all about the ratings. The more countries you include in the finals, the larger your ratings will be. Very few people will watch sports like gymnastics if their country is not represented.


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## billc (Jul 31, 2012)

Sooo...you're saying it's not about physical and athletic excellence after all...


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## billc (Jul 31, 2012)

Some thoughts on the London Olympics...

http://reason.com/archives/2012/07/31/why-london-is-yawning-over-the-olympics



> _London_&#8212;On the eve of the 30th Summer Olympics, the most striking thing about this city was the complete lack of street buzz. In contrast to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, when all of China was mobilized for the games, there was no discernible excitement in the air.



And what was that Mitt Romney said...



> No doubt the many snafus in the run-up to the games have dampened public enthusiasm. But the bigger reason Londoners are so unmoved is that the era of nationalistic fervor whipped up through mega-projects is over in the West. The West, quite simply, may have outgrown these games.
> The London Olympics, like every Olympics before them, are hopelessly over-budget. The city has already blown its original $4 billion budget target four times over on obligatory new stadiums and athlete villages. Meanwhile, G4S, the firm that was awarded the security contract for the games, failed to deliver enough personnel, forcing the military to be called in. British authorities have also perched surface-to-air missiles on rooftops of private apartment buildings, scaring the living bejeezus out of residents. As if that weren&#8217;t enough, a scheme to award tickets via lottery went horribly wrong when overburdened websites crashed, leaving people who had paid thousands of dollars up front hanging for weeks before finding out if they were among the lucky winners.





> A BBC-sponsored pop music festival in late June had to post a backstage notice pleading with performers to refrain from &#8220;referencing the Olympic games in a negative or derogatory way.&#8221; Even more striking are the findings of a January BBC Global poll in which 48 percent of Brits said that the performance of their athletes matters &#8220;little&#8221; or &#8220;not at all&#8221; to their national pride.
> No doubt the Brits are in a bad mood because they are being asked to foot the bill for the games during a time of austerity, when England&#8217;s economy is doing a double dip. But the same poll found that the French and the Spanish are only slightly less blasé about their athletes&#8217; performance, suggesting that the Brits&#8217; ennui is part of a larger Western mood swing.
> It&#8217;s no wonder. With the end of the Cold War, the Olympics are no longer a platform for the West and the Soviet bloc countries to showcase their rival systems. The games now are more about individual excellence and less about national loyalties.






> All this means that Western boosters of the games can&#8217;t justify their spare-no-expense attitude in the name of &#8220;intangible benefits&#8221; such as national honor anymore. Unlike, say, emerging economies such as India and China, the issue for Western taxpayers is not whether their governments are capable of pulling off an elaborate event, but whether it&#8217;s worth it. Western citizens are far less tolerant of the excesses and the screw-ups and far more skeptical of the inflated claims about the benefits of the games.
> This means that even if the London Olympics go off without a hitch, future games will have a hard time maintaining public support without major changes in their business model.



But...But...I thought it was all about excellence and all that...




> The Olympics are a giant exercise in sports socialism&#8212;or crony capitalism, if you prefer&#8212;where the profits are privatized and the costs socialized. The games never pay for themselves because they are designed not to. That&#8217;s because the International Olympic Committee (an opaque &#8220;nongovernmental&#8221; bureaucracy made up of fat cats from various countries) pockets most of the revenue from sponsorships and media rights (allegedly to promote global sports), requiring the host country to pay the bulk of the costs. Among the very few times the games haven&#8217;t left a city swimming in red ink was after the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, when voters, having learned from Montreal&#8217;s experience, barred the use of public funds, forcing the IOC to use existing facilities and pick up most of the tab for new ones.


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## billc (Aug 2, 2012)

And the olympic scandal of the day...Boxing judges...

http://deadspin.com/5931226/was-this-disgraceful-olympic-boxing-match-fixed



> Knockdowns are exceedingly rare in Olympic boxing. Japan's Satoshi Shimizu knocked down Azerbaijan's Magomed Abdulhamidov_five times_ in the third and final round of their bantamweight bout yesterday. And yet, the judges scored the round in favor of the one who spent more time on the canvas than on his feet.
> "I was shocked by the final scores. He fell down so many times," Shimizu said. "Why didn't I win? I don't understand."​After Abdulhamidov was awarded the 22-17 victory over Shimizu, the uproar began. Fans rained boos from the stands, and Japanese officials immediately lodged a protest. It was, by any account, the biggest competitive disgrace of the Olympics so far. And there's reason to ask if this was more than the usual Olympic boxing incompetence, but rather something more sinister.
> Last September, _BBC Newsnight_ presented evidence that Azerbaijan had paid millions of dollars in an international boxing organization, in return for a guarantee that two Azerbaijanis would win gold medals at these London Olympics. They found documents showing a $9 million bank transfer, funneled through Switzerland, to a boxing organization owned by AIBA, which oversees Olympic boxing. Whistleblowers reported that the money came from an Azerbaijan government minister, and were strictly a cash-for-medals exchange.


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