Is Brazil still equipped to host a successful Summer Olympics in 2016?

Of course not. It’s just an example of how idiotic and corrupt the IOC is. The only sports organization more corrupt is FIFA.

http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/01/14/463030768/amid-recession-brazil-struggles-with-the-huge-costs-of-the-olympics

I heard on NPR yesterday that the public health system in the country is on the verge of collapse from the cutting of resources. The medical community has flat out warned that there are no services capable of coping with typical medical requirements accompanying the games. Moreover, construction on required venues such as stadiums, playing fields, etc. has ground to a halt because funding has dried up. Contractors and thousands of workers are unpaid for work performed months ago, and the whole mess is unraveling. If I remember correctly, the decline in oil revenues is responsible for the debacle.

Things keep going the way they are there in Brazil and there may not be a 2016 Olympics. Let that happen THEN you will see some changes in how they are awarded.

All that matters is whether they can sufficiently bribe the committee members. I honestly don’t know why we support the Olympics at all. It’s basically a scheduled environmental, economic, and sometimes humanitarian disaster.

I, too, heard parts of the NPR story, @Rarebear & @stanleybmanly, and that’s where this question came from.
If they’re not equipped for the Olympics, then will there be some sort of bail-out? Where would it come from? Does the Olympic Committee have that kind of money?

Can the 2016 Summer Olympics be allowed to fail? @rojo. Is there any stop-gap?
I remember hearing during the debate on the next Winter Olympics that only authoritarian countries can host Olympics anymore. Only they can authorize a huge waste monetary resources to make the country look prosperous.

I’ve been wondering if building a permanent Olympic Village somewhere was feasible. @dappled_leaves. Like maybe in Greece. The committee pay upkeep and overhead? Has that ever been proposed?

“Still equipped”?? I don’t think they were ever equipped to host an international event like the Olympics. What were they thinking?

The question is filled with a critical error: “Is Brazil still equipped… carries an implication that they were equipped at one point. That is flat out false, there were as many lies in the Brazilian proposal as turds in Guanabara Bay.

There have been proponents of a permanent location floated a few times, but quickly squelched as different countries have wanted the publicity of being host.

If Brazil collapses, perhaps awarding the 2022 Winter Games to Beijing will be reviewed. That was a terrible idea.

In the late 60’s I used to go up to Squaw Valley for the weekend. A lot of the Olympic Structures from the 1960 games were still around. We used to stay at the Olympic Village for $15 a night, including dinner and breakfast. Sure, it was a dorm, but you also knew that great athletes like Jean-Claude Killy had stayed there.

@Cruiser Jinx! Your post went up while I was writing mine.

I think the problem, @Cruiser & @zenvelo was that when Brazil was awarded the Olympics, the country was awash in oil money and it seemed like a good way to showcase the country as a modern power. Like a $250,000 lottery winner, they pre-spent $1,000,000. Oil bottomed out and when the money was gone, it was gone.
“Equipped”, as in, at the time the Olympics were awarded, they appeared to have the finances.

Given that only the totalitarian countries appear capable of putting on a grand Olympics, I think it might be time to rethink the venue. Either a permanent location, or multiple locations, each catered to a certain sport.

@ibstubro All well and good but there are many examples of lessons learned from the crushing burden of hosting the Olympics and recent reports do not bode well for Brazil pulling this off at this stage of the game. I always tell my wife…no better way to get the house cleaned up than to throw a party!

What’s all well and good, @Cruiser?

@ibstubro But Brazil had a lot of known issues at the t I me it was awarded The Games. And one of them was known to be insurmountable: the raw sewage in the bay where Yachting is scheduled, and where triathlon was going to be held.

@ibstubro Your 1st reply to me…“when Brazil was awarded the Olympics, the country was awash in oil money and it seemed like a good way to showcase the country as a modern power.” Looks good on paper until they have to step up and actually make it all happen.

Actually the secret’s out that any location hosting the games takes a net bath. The result of this revelation is a rising resistance on the part of residents and taxpayers to the chamber of commerce hype. There are of course winners, the hospitality industry, construction trades, etc., but overall the enormous expenses and pile of disruptions around mounting the games renders them a loser at the bottom line.

@stanleybmanly I did some research on this topic yesterday and though some countries made hundreds of millions on hosting the Olympics some lost as much or more. But it is truly difficult to gauge the true net economic “value” impact of what hosting the Olympics will have.

A quote from one article I read…” it’s misleading to calculate how much money is spent in a city during the Olympics. A fair comparison requires some estimate of how much would have been spent without them. When the Games come, after all, other kinds of tourism go. During the 2012 Games, the Adelphi Theatre in London’s West End suspended performances of “Sweeney Todd.” The British Museum received 480,000 visitors that August, down from 617,000 the previous year. Indeed, Britain received about 5 percent fewer foreign visitors in August 2012 than it did in the same month the previous year. Those who showed up spent more, sure, but London spent billions of dollars to lure them. “If Boston hosts the 2024 Olympics, there’s no doubt that [the city] is going to be overrun with sports tourists,” said Victor Matheson, an economist at the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts. “But Boston is already overrun with tourists in the summer.”

The article went on to discuss a dynamic I never considered before and that is an intrinsic value to the host cities citizens in that no matter what the profit and loss is…it is the feel good and bragging rights that it’s citizens get to have from that day on that their city/country hosted one of the biggest sporting events ever.

It may or may not be successful, but it will be interesting, considering your points of consideration. And remember! The summer Olympics are being held in Rio where it will be winter! (Average high temp for month of Aug. = 78 degrees! Low, 66. Rain 2.0”)

I had wondered about the history of the sewage in the bay when the the news organizations started talking about it last year, @zenvelo. But at the time weren’t they saying that could be surmounted given enough cash that never materialized? I think processing the sewage is necessary for the health of the city, ultimately.

I’ve heard a lot about the “net bath” too, @stanleybmanly. It why there isn’t better competition to host.

Yeah, It should be interesting, @kritiper, if they pull it off. There are few places swimming in cash these days to help bail them out.

Another “stat” I found very interesting is that the runners up for hosting the Olympics benefited economically as much as the host city. By promoting your desire to host the Olympics sends a clear message to the rest of the world that you are now a viable stable player in the economic world and businesses are then attracted to these vibrant up and coming economies. I found this to be a very interesting statistic.

CDC Warns Pregnant Women to Avoid 14 Countries in the Americas

Including, of course, Brazil.