Olympics 2016

Here's something I didn't know. In Rio every
year, 5 people an hour are killed in gun
violence. 42,000 a year. For comparison,
in the whole state of New York, it's about
900, and half of those are from suicides.

Why are they having the Olympics in
a city with one of the highest crime
rates in the world, where the cops
haven't been paid in months. The
swimmers are in the water with dead
bodies, and every possible water
borne disease. Several athletes in
a boat race there last year contracted
a flesh eating virus.

Insanity.

'According to the AP, athletes are "almost certain to come into contact with disease-causing viruses that in some tests measured up to 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach. A more recent study found "super bacteria" both in the water and on popular tourist beaches. According to Reuters, this bacteria can cause urinary, gastrointestinal, pulmonary, and bloodstream infections in addition to meningitis, all of which are hard to treat.'

And the hospitals there are overcrowded crap
holes. Why would you even go there as a
spectator. The Olympic Village is such a
disaster, with over flowing toilets and backed
up sinks, the Australian athletes are staying
in a hotel downtown.

Go Katie Ledecky
Looking forward to opening ceremonies next week

Australian athletes aren't staying in hotels. There was a big blow up last week where our chef de mission (whatever the hell that means) basically told them to fix the issues or the team would stay elsewhere. Since then things have been fixed so all good to stay there. Quite a comical situation though really.

EDIT: Just read there was some fire evacuation today which wreaked havoc in the village. A shambles.

Quote: Evenbob

Here's something I didn't know. In Rio every
year, 5 people an hour are killed in gun
violence. 42,000 a year. For comparison,
in the whole state of New York, it's about
900, and half of those are from suicides.

Why are they having the Olympics in
a city with one of the highest crime
rates in the world, where the cops
haven't been paid in months. The
swimmers are in the water with dead
bodies, and every possible water
borne disease. Several athletes in
a boat race there last year contracted
a flesh eating virus.

Insanity.

When they awarded the games all the talk was of the BRICS. The BRICS have left many disappointed, so much push before they had arrived. Will they ever arrive? Brazil is a history of rise and collapse. I did a major report for it in college. For 200+ years always the same. They rise for most of a generation, but they rise overdependent on one or a small number of products. Then they overheat and collapse, and they collapse hard. One reason is so little available good land. Brazil is a bit like California, mountains are natural barriers to development. All the land gets squeezed onto, prices rise, then collapse.

Personally I do like the Southern Hemisphere in the rotation of the games. For as little as I care about the games, anyways.

There was already a small fire in the
O Village today. They had to evacuate
part of it. It's a new building but the
electric wiring is sub par even for a
crap hole like Rio. Before anybody
moved in they tried turning on the
lights in 20% of the rooms all
at once and all it did was blow the
breakers every time. They supposedly
'fixed' it. It sounds like what they
did was bypass the breakers, like putting
a penny in a fuse box. Now the electric
stays on but things are catching fire.

Quote: Evenbob

Why are they having the Olympics in
a city with one of the highest crime
rates in the world, where the cops
haven't been paid in months.

Remember when they announced that the 2016 Olympics wouldn't be in Chicago and Republicans all cheered???

Republicans: on the wrong side of literally everything.

I like the fact that the Olympics move from city to city every 4 years
Its a great tradition.
The problem is that it has ballooned to a massive scale and compressed into just 2 weeks

The solution
Spread it out over a whole summer
Swimmers open the competition in June
They finish up in a week, next week bring in another sport
ect ect
Last week of August start track and field to close out the games

Quote: terapined

I like the fact that the Olympics move from city to city every 4 years
Its a great tradition.
The problem is that it has ballooned to a massive scale and compressed into just 2 weeks

The solution
Spread it out over a whole summer
Swimmers open the competition in June
They finish up in a week, next week bring in another sport
ect ect
Last week of August start track and field to close out the games

The runaway cost now is security. In Vancouver in 2010 for the Winter Olympics it was a friggin $1 billion and the Winter Olympics are a much smaller event. Likely spreading out the security for a summer would cost considerably more. Probably kill the TV ratings too since no one could stay pumped up to watch for a whole summer.

Quote: kenarman

The runaway cost now is security. In Vancouver in 2010 for the Winter Olympics it was a friggin $1 billion and the Winter Olympics are a much smaller event. Likely spreading out the security for a summer would cost considerably more. Probably kill the TV ratings too since no one could stay pumped up to watch for a whole summer.

I disagree about security costing more
Instead of a gigantic security force for 2 weeks
A small security force that moves from sport to sport as 1 event ends 1 week and another event starts the next week
Much smaller crowds concentrated at 1 venue easier to secure then an entire city filled with venues
Much smaller Olympic village as athletes move in and out as events end and start

As for TV ratings
World Cup lasts over a month and gets great ratings