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#1 |
Lieutenant
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I am splitting this off from 'Beijing Bashing' as I think we need to examine the entire movement, not just the ill-advised choice of the PRC for 2008. Forgive a lengthy post to permit me to make my case.
According to the Olympics’ official website, Pierre de Coubertin, the man who proposed restarting the games, stated, “The important thing in life is not the triumph, but the fight; the essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.” How well have the modern Games lived up to this promise? The intent a hundred years ago was to boost sport, ennoble the human spirit and to foster international peace and goodwill by allowing amateur athletes a chance to compete in a spirit of friendship and equality. Since then, sadly, the games have become political, professional and corrupt. At the heart of the problem lies the corruption inherent in the IOC and many of its constituent bodies. All of us can recall the recent scandals surrounding judging and the selection process for host city. The Committee has come to view itself as above comment, answerable only to itself. That the IOC would award games celebrating the human spirit to a repressive and brutal dictatorship is indicative of its complete moral bankruptcy. Lest anyone think that this is a recent trend, remember that it also awarded the Games to Nazi Germany in 1936. This corruption goes well beyond mere venality, beyond kickbacks and bribes and beyond “I’ll vote for you if you vote for me.” The corruption reaches down to the very bottom levels of the Olympic movement. Were the Olympic Games what de Coubertin had envisaged, our interest would be more on the athletics themselves as opposed to how many medals can be garnered. Instead, from national governments on down, success is measured in medals won, not in terms of participation, effort or heart. The Games, it is said, are supposed to be above politics. Perhaps, in the same sense that Christmas is above mere gift-giving. The reality is that the Games have become highly politicized. Instead of being considered a solemn duty, having a city accepted as the location of the Games is a political coup, a cause for national jubilation, a showcase to the world. Intense lobbying by governments and huge government financial support has become the norm. It is more important that the games be held here than in the best place, the place most suitable. Further, that governments have connived at their athletes’ cheating is a certainty. The East German government was infamous for its chemical research programmes. While the DDR is, unlamentedly, gone, it seems most likely that other nations are engaging in activities just as far from the Olympic stated goals. Even if it is just at the individual level, the number of competitors who violate their oaths and engage in evermore sophisticated chemical performance enhancers is a pretty good indicator of how skewed our vision has become. “...The essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well...” How far have we strayed from that concept? Only about 180º. The games were once about amateur sport. The scene in Chariots of Fire in which a professional coach is barred from even entering the Game’s stadium is far from fiction. Athletes’ records were once scrutinized to ensure they had not the slightest professional background. And now? Professional athletes are openly welcomed in some sports. “We want to get the best performance, the best game,” is the rationale. Perhaps, but this comes at a price. Excellent athletes unable to find funding, especially those from poorer countries, cannot do so on an even basis. On the subject of professionalism, for how many years have we winked at the very concept? How many nations have, for instance, enlisted their best athletes into their armed forces, with their sole duty that of training for the next Games? Another point - the ancient Greeks held their games in the nude, specifically that no athlete could in any way steal an advantage; it was up to the athletes to triumph, nothing else. Consider how sidetracked the modern Games have become from their original intent given the increasing importance of technology. The human body, some would say, has gone about as far as it can. Records can only be broken by way of a slicker swimming suit, a more aerodynamically-efficient helmet for bicycling, improved shoes. Elaborate security measures are put in place to prevent other nations’ athletes from seeing the new developments and perhaps thereby leveling the field. Many winners now owe their 1/100th of a second ‘victory’ to hi-tech clothing, computer training programmes and hideously expensive equipment. One is left with the impression that the engineers and designers should share the podium with the athletes, for the success is as much about them as it is about athletic excellence. No matter what decision is made by individual athletes and nations this year, the Olympic Games will go on, stumbling into the future like some antediluvian creature, unaware of its increasing irrelevance. But that does not mean that there is not another way to rescue de Coubertin’s vision. It is proposed that we simply walk away from the Olympics – just leave the druggies and the techies, the bribers and the bribed, the connivers and the pretenders to continue their dance of mutual admiration, together with their contract bridge, bowling and ballroom dancing. Instead, let us begin, for the lack of a better name, the Greek Games. Let us hold them every four years, with the following conditions:
Last edited by Trex; 04-08-08 at 05:55 PM. |
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#2 |
Soaring
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Just cut every way in which Olympics get any money from our taxes and TV fees and economical investments and transportation budgets and... and... and... and then to hell with it, let it run if people want it - but make sure that it lives only by money directly made from private donations of people intentionally donating. None of my already high TV fees being used to broadcast some champions Leagues finale. No cent being used from my taxes for the National Olympic committee. No taxes to pay ridiculously high TV rights for live broadcasting such things - the cost-effect-bilance calculates terribly bad. Make sure in every way that the whole hypocritical madness gets payed exclusively by those people only who want to see it. no direct and no indirect subsidies for such commercial shows that are big business only that uses "sports!" as a fig leaf to hide behind. then we even must not worry about doping anymore, and can leave it to the athletes alone.
The idea of the Olympic spirit is dead as dead can be. Commerce has shot, stabbed, poisoned, hanged, beheaded and driven over it. And sporting results being decided by 1/100 second only, decisions that need hightech to be made and are beyond the unarmed human perception capability, are simply ridiculous and against the spirit of sport. the German flag carrier of the terror games 1972 in Munich, a woman, wrote two weeks ago in two German newspapers (i sum up both articles in content), with regard to Tibet as well as the overboarding commercial interests, that today she would not consider to participate in the Olympics again, that there is no honour in it anymore, and that the Games lost their innocence when 1972 they said after the Palestinian terror: "the Games must go on". This was when commerce took over. She also said she would refuse to carry Germany's flag into the Beijing stadium today, and would consider it to be an offence both for her and for Germany as a nation and a people being abused in that propaganda stunt, to ask her today or even take that into account, and she says that by all means of the original Olympic spirit, the games must be boycotted. She also directly compared to the British football team in 1936 that entered the stadium and raised their right arms for the Hitler greeting. she is a successful doctor in her 50s and wrote history by having been the first female flag carrier here. she hardly needs to speak by reasons of having been unsuccessful and disappointed by life.
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If you feel nuts, consult an expert. Last edited by Skybird; 04-08-08 at 06:11 PM. |
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#3 |
Fleet Admiral
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I have very fond memories as a kidling sitting with my family watching the olympics. We used to watch them every evening for two weeks.
These days the coverage stynks. Here in America the televised coverage is so biased it makes you sick. Unless it is an event where Americans have a guaranteed chance of winning, there is little or no coverage. Even when there is coverage, there are too many interruptions with those stupid human interest stories about the competition. I want to watch the competition! All of the competition. By all the countries. Not just the few seconds where the American's can smile at the camera! It seems it is all basketball in the summer olympics When did basketball become an olympic sport? Were the Americans so desperate for gold medals that we had to push games where we dominate??? Personally, this year I doubt my family will watch any of the olympics. It just does not have the magic that is used to. And that makes me sad ![]()
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abusus non tollit usum - A right should NOT be withheld from people on the basis that some tend to abuse that right. |
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#4 |
Fleet Admiral
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[QUOTE=Trex]
to eliminate judging bias, events would be limited to those which can be measured in terms of speed, accuracy, strength, endurance, etc. If a judging panel is required to measure ‘grace’ or ‘technique’, then the event should not be included.[quote] I am still angry that in one of the recent winter olympics one of the French figure skating judges admitted that she biased her scores on political grounds. She was banned from judging for about 2 years. Two years??? Why would a judge who was guilty of cheating not be banned for life. Banned as you leave right this second and you never never come back. Two year ban means she can be a judge in future olympics. Even when we know she cheated. She admitted to cheating. That's what's wrong with the olympics ![]()
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abusus non tollit usum - A right should NOT be withheld from people on the basis that some tend to abuse that right. |
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#5 |
Navy Seal
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You are not even allowed to enter now unless you can prove
you are in the top 20%(?) of your sport. This rule was introduced to stop people like Eddie the Eagle and Anlloyd Samuel from competing. There is no doubting that the games are the finest showcase of sporting ability. However, they are a long, long way from a fine example of sporting behaviour. ![]() Time to improve, rather than end.
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#6 |
Sea Lord
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It was time to end them after Munich Massacre in '72...
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#7 |
Navy Seal
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The time to finish the games was after 2004. Athens was were it started, it seemed a good place to finish. At least when I was part of the Sydney and Athens torch relay, the chance of mass riots and my life being in danger due to carring the torch was limited!
![]() Sydney was the best, but I'm a little bias! ![]() Some of us volunteers still haven't got over it http://www.spiritofsydney.com/ |
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#8 |
Ace of the Deep
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The Olympics should have been relegated to the dustbin of history long ago.
It has been about politics and money for a very long time now. Anyone remember the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin or how the U.S. and Soviet Union used the games as another battleground? The only reason a group of criminal thugs like the Communist Chinese got to host the Olympics is because too many foreign business interests and the governments they own ( mine included ) want to suck up to China and their potential for making profits beyond the wildest dreams of avarice.
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Still sailing the high seas, hunting convoys with those who join me. |
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#9 | |
Samurai Navy
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That said, the Olympics should not cease. Regardless of controversy, the Olympics is still there for athletes. It is a great chance for them to compete against the best and to test themselves and taste the rewards of their training and determination. As far as it being hosted in China? Why not. I don't know if anyone has noticed, but China is a rapidly changing place. It is certainly changing faster than many 'old democracies'. Despite being an 'old country' China in many ways is one of the youngest. IMO though, the olympics should be held in Greece every time. The international community could then invest in creating a purpose built series of arenas. Building Arena's all over the globe that struggle to cope after the games is pure waste. It may also stop the distracting protesters who try and steal the Olympic thunder for their own purposes. If anyone thinks saving Tibet is the best thing ever, then get off your backside and sort out the host of other occupied lands in far more explosive regions, primarily regions that may lead to a nuclear exchange. Good luck to all the competitors. |
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#10 |
Officer
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Good post, AkbarGulag
![]() Good luck to competitors! Best Regards.
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Большому кораблю - большая торпеда! |
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#11 |
Fleet Admiral
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AkbarGulag
Concur Good post!
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abusus non tollit usum - A right should NOT be withheld from people on the basis that some tend to abuse that right. |
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#12 | ||
Soaring
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I'm a bit tired of hearing about Chinese change will come. Call again when it is there. And for the better, which includes "our better". Oh, and every Western government still doing so: please stop paying foreign aid to this poor, poor third world country (insane Germany still does, can you believe it). Western taxes get wasted that way - while the Chinese economy munches up Western jobs in return, what again is a nice change indeed, thank you. Next we get a tax for job-loosing, or what? Quote:
Today, it is all avout business, and commerce, and business advertizing, anbd last but not least, it is about the IOC which no longer sees itself as the servant of the athletes, but sees the athletes as servers to the IOC business interests. It's all a farce. Holding the games in Greece every time will just lead to a new corporation being raised that controls these sites and according regulations, and cooperates with the IOC - the business component of Olympics will become even more dominant. It all will become even more business-profitable and criterions will shift even more from sport interests to profit interests. It all will become an even greater violation of the Olympic idea of sportsmanship and honest humane competition.
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#13 | |
Lieutenant
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Thanks for a good post. I would note however that it was not my intent to stop international competition or deny top athletes a chance to compete against each other. It is my personal feeling that the present Olympics movement and its corrupt/inane/self-serving (your choice) guiding bodies are beyond fixing and will never return to the original intent of the movement. Accordingly, let's move on, establish a new set of contests based on de Coubertin's original concepts, fine-tuned to avoid the problems so apparent with the present Olympics. |
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#14 |
Soaring
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Agree with Trex. Olympics are FUBAR, imo. And I can'T see in how far they are needed for athletes as ao "great chance for them to compete against the best and to test themselves and taste the rewards of their training and determination."
You can have all that in continent and world championships as well. And in fact, you already have. Including corrupt policies as well. Doping. HighTech. Commercial interests interfering with sportsmanship. Just the hypcritic idealism of how much Olympic it all is, is not there. And that hardly is a loss (the lack of Olympic hypocrisy, I mean).
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#15 | |
Wayfaring Stranger
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