Op-Ed by Neenah Payne
The Opening Ceremony of the Rio Olympics did not receive high ratings, but it is always fun to see how the host country presents itself to the world. Brazil gave us a short recap of its history. It’s also very moving to watch the world’s top athletes parade into the stadium in a show of global friendship. Then, for several days, we sit in our living rooms with front row seats to watch incredible performances.
Gymnast Simone Biles’ lived up to high expectations. Swimmer Michael Phelps won his 23rd Olympic gold medal before retirement. The August 22nd Sports Illustrated cover featured them with swimmer Katie Ledecky who set world records in distances from 200-800 meters. During the Summer Olympics, we take a few days out of own lives to revel in the excellence of the best athletes on the planet. For that week or so, war seems far away and it seems possible for everyone to get along peacefully.
So, the Rio Olympics was a feel good time for all. Or was it?
Polluted Copacabana Beach and Guanabara Bay
Photos of famed Copacabana beach and Guanabara Bay were the first signs that something was seriously amiss. The unbelievable levels of sewage and dangerous pollution posed major threats to athletes participating in rowing and sailing. Brazil had promised to clean the bay by the Olympics, but failed to do so.
The article 3 Teaspoons Of Water In Rio Is Enough To Make Anyone Seriously Sick points out that antibiotics are ineffective against the bay’s pathogens. According to Dr. Valerie Harwood of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of South Florida, 16 months of vigorous testing found that 90% of all locations had high levels of the viruses.
The physician stated:
That’s a very, very, very high percentage. Seeing that level of human pathogenic virus is pretty much unheard of in surface waters in the US. You would never, ever see these levels because we treat our waste water. You just would not see this.
The article Live From Rio: Out of the Pool, and Over to the Beach reported:
“One doctor told The New York Times that athletes will “literally be swimming in human crap.” Local pediatrician Daniel Becker warned that there’s a very real risk of getting sick from microorganisms and toxins in the water. Their advice? Competitors need to keep their mouths shut while swimming, or risk getting very ill….One local added that the bay “smells like (expletive) because it’s full of (expletive)”…He described the stench as “often overpowering” and claims to have seen human waste and dead animals in the water….earlier this month, scientists found a group of drug-resistant bacteria in Rio’s waters. The bacteria was found to cause meningitis, pulmonary gastrointestinal urinary tract, and bloodstream infections.
Which Sports Held in Rio’s Sewage-Contaminated Waters Present the Biggest Health Risk? said that of the 11 Olympic water sports, five—canoe sprint, marathon swimming, rowing, sailing, and triathlon—took place in the open water. It reported that the greatest risk was contracting hepatitis A which lasts weeks to months or a viral infection which would cause days of diarrhea and/or incessant vomiting.
It should be illegal to ask athletes to put their health at risk during the competitions. However, the polluted bay showed just one aspect of the dark side of the Olympics – one that affected the athletes. There was an even more pernicious reality hidden from the athletes, their families, and TV viewers.
How The Rio Olympics Hurt Brazilians
Hosting the Olympics requires an investment in expensive construction that may be of little use after the games. Every country wants to put its best foot forward to impress the world during those few days when it will be the center of attention. However, to do so in this global recession often means cutting back domestically – especially since Brazil having hosted the expensive World Cup in 2014. Most hurt were Black Brazilians in the slums of Rio.
Protesters Rage Unsuccessfully as Rio’s Poor Black Men Are Slaughtered reports:
Weeks before the games began, Rio de Janeiro declared an unprecedented “state of public calamity” over its finances and stopped paying some of its police officers and civil servants, while hospital supplies have been cut.
People are being denied basic services and yet they see billions spent on the gaudy redevelopment of the port in the east of the city while an enclave of wealthy investors in the west have benefitted from an enormously expensive infrastructure redevelopment.
The roads and metro that will service this exclusive suburb have been built on top of the homes of some of the city’s poorest residents — some claim they were deliberately routed to take-out as much of the informal shanty town housing, known as the favelas, as possible.”
The article adds:
A few hundred of the most disgusted marched near the Maracanã stadium this afternoon in protest at what has come to be called the “Exclusion Games”
….
The protesters were clamoring to tell the world that the real story of the city was being whitewashed by a government and games organizers who want to hide their plight rather than use the Olympic legacy to help them.
“Since we got the World Cup and Olympics, our city has been militarized and divided,” said Mariana Wendeck, 27.
Policies to clear the city of street vendors, beggars, and the homeless have attracted widespread criticism….”
Our people suffer so that no one spoils your view,” said Wendeck.
.…
Summary execution and other police killings are the most egregious way ordinary, poor people have been excluded from the Olympics, but there are dozens more ways to keep them out.
Buses serving the poorest communities that were supposed to be improved as part of the games have mysteriously been cut off altogether….
“Who is benefitting from having these major sporting events here? … you will see that there is no legacy,” said Neder.
The Maré where Borges was shot and almost killed has been physically excluded from the Rio skyline by a huge multi-colored wall that prevented Olympic athletes and spectators from even seeing that it existed as they drove into the city from the main airport where it is located.
“They are trying to hide us, and pressure people to stay inside the favelas,” said Borges.
….
He won’t be watching the Opening Ceremony.
“There is nothing to celebrate. This event is taking place in Rio but we don’t have hospitals, transport, rights, security.”
(emphasis added)
In 2015, more than 480 black men were killed by the police in Rio. One of the victims of the over-policing of favelas was 30-year-old Vitor Santiago. For many black residents like Vitor Santiago, Brazil’s Olympic legacy will be more about violence and exclusion, since the games don’t feel welcoming to those who live in the poor parts of the city. “Olympics for whom?” Irone Santiago asks. “These games are made with the blood of our sons.”
Rotating Olympics Are Detrimental
The real game at the Olympics is profit points out that the games are being held against the backdrop of Brazil’s worst economic crisis since the 1930s. They are costing £3.5 billion, an over-run of 51 percent. For big construction firms, the Olympics is a godsend. Rio is awash with developments providing gigantic profits for huge companies. Around a third of the cost of the games comes from private financing. The rest comes from the pockets of the poor. An estimated 77,000 people have been made homeless.
The depth of anger over the social cleansing of Brazil for the Olympics burst out as the ceremonial torch passed though the coastal town of Angra dos Reis. Protesters, angry over unpaid wages, housing shortages, and service cuts, seized the torch and extinguished it. It is one example of the fury about what the games means to ordinary people. The poor have been unceremoniously evicted while the rich are subsidized.
The gold, silver, and bronze in the Olympic medals are being provided by mining giant Rio Tinto. The mine and smelter supplying the Olympics has caused worse water contamination than any mining operation in the world. It has been accused of causing about 150 premature deaths a year through air pollution. The State of Rio de Janeiro remained in a health emergency during the Games due to funding shortages which came to a head in December 2015 – some hospitals were even told they couldn’t have new equipment due to Olympic spending.
Vancouver-based Chris Shaw says that because new construction on this scale is always damaging, it is impossible for the Olympics to have a positive impact on the environment. For example, the return of golf to the Summer Olympics for the first time since 1904 means that each new host city must cover a vast expanse of land in chemicals to get those lush greens ready for TV.
The Exclusion Games: what went wrong with Brazil’s Olympic dream? concludes:
A look at the history of Olympic impacts tells us that this story isn’t new in Brazil. In their present form, the Olympics are financially, environmentally, and socially completely unsustainable. The demands placed on host cities by the IOC exasperate existing urban issues and the only legacy left is of exclusion. Rio’s Olympic dream has become a nightmare.
After the games go: 17 haunting abandoned Olympic venues points out that hosting the Olympics is an expensive investment with few, if any, long-term benefits. The games cost Sochi $51 billion, London $11.6 billion, and Beijing at least $40 billion. It has been reported that it takes decades to recover from these enormous expenses. Yet, the Olympics do not leave a legacy of world class infrastructure. In fact, the globe is littered with the rusting husks of former Olympic venues.
The New York Times article An Olympic Event Where 1st Prize Is the Chance to Lose Billions points out that delegates representing Los Angeles, Paris, Rome, and Budapest battled to court the International Olympic Committee in Rio in hopes of being awarded the 2024 Summer Games. It says these cities are all seeking to win a contest that for nearly the last three decades cost host cities billions. Rio is expected to lose at least $4.6 billion. The last profitable Olympic Games took place in 1984 in Los Angeles, and that might have been an anomaly. The 1976 Games in Montreal lost over $1 billion.
There Is A Better Option
So, all the goodwill between athletes of different countries inside the Olympic stadium did not extend to Brazilians outside the games. In fact, the costs to Brazil of hosting the display worsened the lives of many (most?) Brazilians. That makes the Olympics more a display in hypocrisy than the brotherhood the TV cameras report.
Like all countries, Brazil wanted to appear opulent, modern, and inviting. So, it crushed its own people to meet our expectations. The next countries to host the Olympics will probably do likewise – with similar effects on their populations and perhaps with similar threats to the Olympic athletes.
Perhaps, now is the time to ask if the world is demanding too much of countries in throwing these bankrupting parties. While the idea of holding the summer Olympics games in a different country every four years seems like a wonderful idea, perhaps it should be re-considered now. When we fail to see the whole picture, we give our consent to the oppression. Should the Olympics be a display of wealth and power in a sea of despair – or can it reflect a more humane world?
Greece As Permanent Home of The Summer Olympics
For every Olympics, the Olympic torch is brought from Greece as the home of the Olympics. Perhaps the world should now to ask Greece to serve as the permanent home of at least the Summer games. The International Olympic Committee could pay for construction and maintenance of the site.
Tokyo will host the 2020 Summer Olympics which may expose athletes to the Fukushima radiation. In September of 2015, five finalists were named as contenders to host the 2024 Summer Games and the winner will be announced on Sept. 13, 2017. The world should be smart enough to be able to figure out how to celebrate our top athletes without further oppressing the poor of one nation after another. So, perhaps now is a good time to ask Greece to host the Summer Games permanently starting in 2024.
Move the corrupt, politicized, commercialized Olympics back to Greece says:
As for the permanent host’s identity, it should be a no-brainer: Greece. Greece already built everything the Games require….a permanently Greek Olympics will lift them above the world’s political struggles; just like they did…for nearly a thousand years, in ancient Greece.
Making the case for a permanent home for the Olympic Games points out:
if all Summer Games were to be held in Greece as has been widely suggested, they could still be themed around and presented by rotating sponsor countries.
These 2016 articles are supported by the 2015 Washington Post article We should host the Olympics in the same place every time, There’s A Mounting Call To Make Greece Permanent Home Of The Olympics, And It Makes Perfect Sense, and many more articles.
So, there is growing support for moving at least the Summer Olympics to Greece for many reasons. What is necessary now to make this happen? Can the 2024 Olympics be the start?
Give them games……