Saturday 27 October 2012

Why the USA shouldn't host the Olympics

The USA: land of the free, home of the brave and host nation of 8 Olympic games. Somehow, this nation believes it deserves to host the Olympic games yet another time, I can name but a few of the reasons why it shouldn't. 

The USA has hosted the Summer Olympic games 4 times on top of the 4 winter games the nation has hosted. This figure well surpasses that of any other nation, with only countries such as France and Britain able to come anywhere close. Compare this figure with the number of games hosted on the entire continent of Africa and it seems ridiculous that the USA has hosted the games so much. 
 
Cast your kind back to the last American summer Olympics, the Atlanta games of 1996, the celebration of useless organisation in the USA: the athletes' canteen lacked food native to African and Asian nations, the roads were gridlocked due to the poor transport systems and poor facilities for the global media which led to heavy criticsm of the games all round.
 
If we go back 12 years prior to the games of Atlanta we find ourselves in Los Angeles at the games of the XXIII Olympiad, these games were boycotted by 16 nations mainly due to the US led boycott of the Moscow games four years before, which ultimately led to the medal table being 'slightly skewed' in favour of the United States. 
 
The third member of the terrible threesome of American Olympics is the St Louis games of 1904 which were held as a sideshow to the World's Fair, a decision that nearly ended the Olympic movement before it had truly started.

The United States hasn't just ruined the Summer games either: In 1972 the city of Denver put the IOC in a difficult position when they decided to pull out of their hosting responsibilities for the '76 winter games due to escalating costs, forcing Innsbruck, Austria to step in as last minute host.
 
As if the US hadn't undermined the Olympic movement enough, they decided to bribe IOC members to host the winter games of 2002 in Salt Lake City. Doing so shook the Olympic Committee to the core and put corruption in sporting organisations under the media microscope for years to come.

The USA also lacks interest for Olympic sports in the intervals between editions of the games; the largest IAAF certified Athletics stadium in the United States has a whopping capacity of 10500 at Hayward field in Eugene, Oregon, which has the largest capacity of 4 IAAF tracks in the US.
 
The USA lacks experience in hosting international sporting events; it seems that in recent times the only World Championships they have hosted are those in Equestrian which were held in Lexington in 2010, and just like america does, the USA bided for the 2018 edition of the championships with Wellington, Florida before they pulled out due to lack of political support.
 
So given this information would you trust the USA with the task of organising the World's biggest sporting event? 

No comments:

Post a Comment