Who wants Olympics?
Who wants Olympics? MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! MINE! - GREECE, BRAZIL, CHINA, etc.
The seagulls screaming MINE scene from Finding Nemo just popped up while I was thinking of how countries want to host the Olympics so bad. So, last time I talked about how shared experience could help make the world better. This time, letâs talk about how shared experiences can destroy the world too. Water can flow, or it can crash, right?
Back in 2008, it was the first time I went to Beijing. As all we know, that year was the year China hosted the Olympics. The moment I stepped out of the airport, everything I saw was Olympics related. As an eight-year-old kid, I didnât really feel any Olympics vibe. All I felt was, TOO MUCH! WHY DOES EVERYTHING HAVE TO DO WITH THE OLYMPICS?! Then in 2018, 10 years later, I went to Beijing again. It was so different, everything has changed and nothing was the same. Flags were gone, stadiums were gone, stages were gone. I kinda had that feeling that they donât really care about sports, they just want to let the people around the world know that they can host the Olympics and the fact that the Olympics is not so much about sports but soft power.
To make this blog more âpersuasiveâ, I did my homework. Why is âWe Are The Worldâ a good thing and why is the Olympics bad? Well, one raises money for children who are in need in Africa, while one makes a ton of people move away from places where theyâve been living for over a century and I didnât even mention the pollution and financial crisis caused by hosting the Olympics yet. The Olympics didnât just destroy A country but countries, and it doesnât stop at poor, developing countries, it also affects what we call rich, developed, first world countries.Â
Here comes the theme of this blog, How do so many countries destroy themselves because of Globalization and the Olympics?
As early as the 1976 Olympics almost broke Montreal, and yes it happened in Canada, things about the Olympics are not always that positive. Only in 2007, 31 years after the Olympics in Montreal ended, the city finally paid off the last bill, a debt they have been bearing for 30 years. What does that mean? Imagine yourself, as a taxpayer, was left with a debt that took 30 years to pay off. For what? For appearance, all this burden just for a fourteen-day show-off, with the expense of a city almost got destroyed. Montreal is lucky that its people are able to pay the debt off for the city, but not all cities are that lucky. Look at Athena, it crashed the country. Look at Rio, many people lost their homes and lives because the government wanted to host the Olympics. Itâs almost the same for China, China couldnât really get away from this too. Here comes the âBig Oâ. O stands for Olympics but also stands for Owe. What happened to Montreal even became a professional term which is used to describe those countries who are in financial crisis because of hosting the Olympics, âMontreal Pitfallâ. Unfortunately, âMontreal Pitfallâ is just one of many symptoms of the Post-Olympic Effect. Post-Olympic Effect means the economic growth of the host country keeps accelerating before the Olympics starts and reaches its peak at the game year. After that, the host country will have different degrees of attenuation, but in most cases, everything fades off rapidly. Retail, tourism, etc. fall into recession immediately, stadiums standing idle, increasing rate of unemployment, financial strain on cities caused by the White Elephants. Sadly, this effect can be found easily from many host countries in history. Â
So is hosting the Olympics elitism? I would say partially. As a matter of fact, hosting the Olympics DOES have a positive impact on the economy and society of the host country. It can become a booster for economic and social development, cultural values can be spread widely to different places and create shared experiences. For some big and rich countries like the USA, Germany or the UK, the negative effect is not that obvious. However, for some developing countries like Greece, Japan, Russia, Brazil and China, the effect can really shock their economic systems and it takes time to recover. Despite the economic aspect, some of the criticism is humanistically and environmentally. Before the Rio Olympics began, about 250,000 people were forced to relocate, often violently. In favela(slum neighborhood in Brazil), almost 70,000 people were displayed and around 1000 poor people, mostly black men were killed during what they called âPacificationâ. âPacificationâ is actually an action the government took to clean up the cityâs image before the Olympics by violently âREMOVINGâ the poor people. More than that, there is a lot of criticism against how the Brazil government ruined the environment just to host the Olympics. For instance, eradicating a ton of trees and land, dumping all the toxic waste into the rivers where there are people living nearby. The Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, they completely destroyed a whole mountainside. There were uncountable trees and animals and some of them were close to extinction and more and more.
Now we know how the water can crash the boat, which leads to an important question. With all that negativity, why do some countries still want to host the Olympics so bad? The Olympics isnât just about sports, we all know that. Itâs a propaganda of the host country, itâs also a display of its soft power. Hosting the Olympics is like using drugs in a game, not that worthy but you still want it. Is using drugs good for your health? No. Is it worthy? No. Does it come with serious consequences? Yes. But I want people around the world to know that Iâm good! Iâm one of the best! With the Olympics comes with the great attention from everyone around the world. The host country becomes more visible, it becomes one of the âpowerfulâ countries because it has the ability to host the Olympics. A country would do anything to prove that it is able for them to host the Olympics. We are talking about using money, land, labor, and all sorts of resources because hosting the Olympics is a symbol of power. Thanks to globalization, everyoneâs eyes are on you. Every country wants to be seen as a powerful country, every country wants to have a ticket to âGlobal Citizenâ, whatâs better than hosting the Olympics to prove that? I personally donât agree with the idea of developing countries hosting the Olympics, because the destruction it brings is far more greater than the benefit. After all, when the medals are awarded and the fireworks are played, the people live there are ones are left to deal with the result.Â
Donât try to shock or impress the world with the Olympics, because the people will be the ones paying for it.
Who wants Olympics now? NEIN...NEIN...NEIN.......











