IOC vice president says Rio preps are "worst" ever

[TexasTowelie]

Source: AP

In an unusually blunt public warning, a vice president of the International Olympic Committee on Tuesday called the delayed preparations for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro "the worst I have experienced."

John Coates, who has made six trips to Brazil as part of the IOC's coordination commission for Rio, said the Brazilians are behind "in many, many ways" and are in worse shape than Greek organizers were in preparing for the 2004 Olympics.

Despite the critical delays, the Australian said there is no backup plan and the games will take place in Rio.

Coates noted that the IOC had taken the unprecedented step of embedding experts in the host city to help the local organizing committee deliver the games.

Read more: http://www.statesman.com/news/ap/top-news/ioc-vice-president-says-rio-preps-are-worst-ever/nfkMm/

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If Rio can't come up with the goods, then they shouldn't have made a bid for the Olympics.

[DinahMoeHum]

1. "Brazil's Dance With The Devil" to be published in June 2014

http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Brazils-Dance-with-the-Devil


Written by Dave Zirin, sports reporter for The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/dave-zirin#

and owner of the blog Edge of Sports
http://www.edgeofsports.com

[MicaelS]

2. I'm sick and tried of the hype surrounding the Olympics.

Let the IOC pick a permanent site for each of Olympics and put the money into upkeep and improvements.

[MADem]

5. They'll never buy that, but even if they rotated the games

between a dozen sites, it would be better than the cluster they have now.

I think it's all just a "skim off the top" exercise, where corrupt officials get a pile of money and take a ton of it for themselves before they slap up cheesy cardboard housing and halfassed venues for the sports. I didn't think anyone could do worse than Sochi with the horrible rooms without basic amenities, the lack of manhole covers on the streets, and the dogs occupying parts of the hotels!

[HooptieWagon]

3. I have heard...

That the body of water where the sailing and open-water swimming events will take place has fecal counts 100s of times higher than safe level.

[DetlefK]

4. Complaints that IOC and FIFA demand too much construction.

Quote:
"Paes said the federations were asking for too many "large things" that won't be used by the city after the Olympics."

If they had bothered to do their homework, they had known that this is completely normal.
You need big-ass soccer-stadiums with 40,000+ seats for a soccer world-cup. At least a dozen of them.
And yes, every city that has hosted the Olympics had problems finding use for the buildings and areas afterwards.

[VWolf]

6. They've got all hands on deck

being behind schedule for the World Cup.

After that, they will turn their attention towards being behind schedule for the Olympics.

[Zen Democrat]

7. They should have picked the favorite in 2009 .... CHICAGO. Rio never made sense to me.

[StevieM]

9. I actually don't think that will ever be a possibility again.

The Summer Olympics have gotten incredibly expensive to produce. They require an enormous amount of funding, something that isn't usually possibly in a Federalist type system like the one we have here. Other countries shell out the money at the national level to pay for the Olympics. We don't and we won't.

There are only two cities that can realistically host the Summer Olympics in the U.S. New York and Los Angeles. NY has a huge population and all that Wall Street and Corporate money flowing into its coffers. LA is part of LA County, which pushes its population up to 8 plus million--whereas Chicago is all of Cook County. LA also has all of that Hollywood money entering its tax pool.

I just don't see how any city other than those two can pull it off. I am not sure if it is realistic to bring the Olympics to NY, given how spread out everything would be. I don't think there would be a good deal of public support--not today, and not in 50 years. So I think that if the Summer Olympics were ever to return to the United States, it would have to be to Los Angeles.

Boston and Denver are both likely bets to host the Winter Olympics, perhaps in 2026 for our country's 250th birthday.

[SwankyXomb]

8. Los Angeles is always ready to put on the Olympics on short notice.

The IOC used that threat in 2004 to get Greece to finish construction.

[JI7]

10. the olympics have been losing a lot of respect with all this crap happening

and this doesn't even include all the individual cheaters and other issues that always come up.