One simple solution to save the Olympics

ABANDONED venues and spiralling debts that take decades to pay off have become the Olympic “legacy”. But is there a resolution?

In this Friday, Aug. 8, 2014 photo, the abandoned beach volleyball Olympic venue is seen in Neo Faliro, southern Athens. As Greece groans under a cruel depression, forecast to end this year, the 10-year anniversary once again raises the question of whether the Athens Games were too costly an undertaking for a weak economy. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)

THE Olympic movement has taken a few shots in recent weeks.

First high-profile candidate Boston became the latest to withdraw from the bidding process for the 2024 Games.

Then Jeff Ruffolo, an American who helped China prepare its winning bid for the 2022 Winter Games, described the Olympics as a “poison pill”.

“The Olympics are dead,” Ruffolo told The Guardian. “It’s a dying concept no one wants to touch. The idea of a bidding process is a joke. Everybody’s laughing about it except for the people in Lausanne (Switzerland, home of the International Olympic Committee). They don’t realise they are riding a dead horse.”

This was followed by ongoing fears about Rio de Janeiro’s ability to provide completed stadiums and water safe enough to swim in, in time for the 2016 edition.

Suddenly the future of the quadrennial sporting event looked bleak. It prompted the International Business Times to once again consider the value in creating a permanent venue for the Games.

Holding the Olympics in the same place every four years has been talked about as far back as 1980 when the United States’ boycott of the Games in Russia threatened its legitimacy.

It’s reaching fever pitch once more on the back of the financial ruin of Greece in the wake of the 2004 Games and revelations Russia poured $50 billion into hosting the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.

John Rennie Short, a professor of public policy and an urban development expert at the University of Maryland, is an advocate of returning the Games permanently to their birthplace in Olympia, Greece.

He argues the IOC should use some of the $8 billion in revenue it reportedly generated from 2008 to 2012 to build venues that could be used for other competitions in non-Olympic years. “You would get rid of the whole issue, just the fiscal insanity, of building these huge edifices that you have a problem with dealing with afterwards,” he told the IBT.

Proponents of the permanent model are less certain about the preferred site for the Winter Games, although Japan and Switzerland have been mentioned as potential hosts.

An aerial view of the Maracana Complex in Rio, which hosts the Summer Olympics next year.

The abandoned beach volleyball venue used in the 2004 Athens Olympics.

The site of the ancient stadium in Olympia, Greece, which was used for the shot put event in 2004.

Aside from the issues of selecting a site and then finding the finances to establish infrastructure there are other factors to consider.

The modern Olympics were created on a rotating basis to encourage inclusiveness and allow cities around the world to promote themselves on a global scale. The opening and closing ceremonies would lose their lustre if a permanent site was chosen and time zones would become a disadvantage for some markets. Grow up on the wrong side of the work and suddenly have every Olympic Games is screening in the middle of the night.

Others have argued five sites — one in Europe, Africa, Asia and North and South America — could be established so that one part of the world isn’t favoured over another but for its part the IOC appears more focused on improving the current model than opting for drastic change.

Last year new IOC president Thomas Bach released Olympic Agenda 2020, which featured 40 recommendations aimed at reducing the cost of bidding for and hosting the Games.

“With a new philosophy in the bidding procedure we are encouraging potential candidate cities to present to us a holistic concept of respect for the environment, feasibility and of development, to leave a lasting legacy,” Bach announced. “With these far-reaching changes we respect that there is no ‘one size fits all solution’ for the sustainability of Olympic Games. Host city candidates strive for very different development goals and start from very different points of development.”

Speaking this week, Australian Olympic Committee CEO Fiona De Jong declared the Olympic movement was far from an endangered species.

“I very much would say the Olympics has an appeal and relevance — today more so than ever,” De Jong said. “We’ve seen the IOC, through new president Thomas Bach’s agenda 2020, relook at the whole bidding process. There’s eight cities currently bidding for 2024, so that’s a very strong support for the Olympic movement.

“Interestingly the changes under Olympic Agenda 2020 will allow a far more sustainable model so we’ll see new and different cities able to bid to host Olympic Games. I think the Olympics is strengthening ... sport continues to play an important part in our society.”