Jacobin Magazine: A Better Olympics Is Possible

The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well. To spread these principles is to build up a strong and more valiant and, above all, more scrupulous and more generous humanity.

These liberal ideals, of course, were never really manifested, not even in the first modern games in 1896 Athens.

But the disparity between Olympic ideology and reality has only deepened since commercial imperatives took over the competition. The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics established a new tradition: the enormous public subsidy of private goods in the name of sports. Since then, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has sought some kind of moral justification for its capitalist excess. [...]

But following Jules Boykoff’s theorization of the Olympics as “celebration capitalism,” let’s instead imagine celebration socialism: an internationalist event that boosts popular participation in sports, equalizes competition between nations, and actually benefits the host community.

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FiveThirtyEight: Hosting The Olympics Is A Terrible Investment

But it could be much worse. The 2014 Winter Games in Sochi blew their budget by 289 percent. The 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid overtopped projections by 324 percent. And the 1976 Games in Montreal ran a staggering 720 percent over projections; the city spent three decades paying down the bill. While outliers such as these distort the average cost overruns somewhat (176 percent for Summer Games, 142 percent for Winter Games), the median cost overrun for all games for which we have data is 90 percent, making Rio’s cost overrun somewhat lower than the historical norm, at least so far. [...]

To put those cost overruns into perspective, Flyvbjerg and his colleagues compared the Olympics to other megaprojects such as bridges, dams, highways, railway lines and major IT projects. The Olympic Games average 156 percent cost overruns, outdistancing all other types of megaprojects. For comparison, road projects average overruns of 20 percent; bridges and tunnels 34 percent; energy projects 36 percent; rail projects 45 percent; dams 90 percent and IT projects 107 percent. Even road, bridge and rail projects come in under budget 10 percent of the time. Of all the types of projects compared, only the Olympics has a flawless record for going over budget, making the games a particularly risky undertaking for governments unprepared to absorb those additional costs. [...]

At the very least, the return on investment would have likely been greater. While most major infrastructure projects go over budget, megaprojects such as bridges, dams and railway lines tend to yield economic benefits for longer than the few weeks that many Olympic facilities are used. Host cities almost invariably fail to cover Olympics costs with associated revenues (for instance, in 2012 London took in $3.5 billion in revenues and shelled out something like $18 billion to host the games), leaving them with piles of debt and various useless venues. Research has repeatedly shown that in most cases the Olympics are a money loser for cities, particularly those in developing nations where the cost-benefit proposition tends to skew even worse.

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Associated Press: Brazilian judge orders Olympics to allow stadium protests

A federal judge in Rio agreed. In a temporary injunction issued late Monday, the judge said that nothing in special legislation passed before the games restricts Brazilians' right to free expression. He threatened to levy fines of up to $3,200 on anyone who removes peaceful protesters from venues.

The Rio organizing committee said it plans to ask the judge to reconsider his ruling and will make a final appeal, if necessary. [...]

To get around the ban on protests inside stadiums, some Brazilians have coordinated with friends each wearing a letter on T-shirts so the message reads "Fora Temer" when they sit in groups. Others carry smaller signs hidden in their belongings, sometimes fashioned with the Olympic rings.

Vinicius Lummertz, president of the government-run tourism board Embratur, said he has no problem with peaceful protests in stadiums as long as the games aren't disturbed.

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Quartz: These are all the events that the refugee athletes will be competing in at the Olympics

For the first time in Olympic history, a team of refugees will get to compete in the upcoming games.

The International Olympic Committee handpicked 10 athletes to compete under the Olympic banner. The team of 10 includes six men and four women, who between them fled the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, South Sudan, and Syria. The refugee team, which consists of swimmers, Judo players, and short and long distance runners, will be participating in a number of events.

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