Looks like hosting the Olympics ain't the honor it used to be

[davidn3600]

For all the talk of global honor and prestige that the Olympics bring to a host city, talk largely promoted by the International Olympic Committee itself, the truth is that the Games tend to smother cities in debt and saddle them with venues they can't ever use again.

Best-case scenario? Host cities get a pat on the head and a "way to go, slugger!" as the two-week IOC circus leaves town. Worst-case? Host cities become the eternal butt of jokes ("nastier than a Sochi hotel room" will resonate for a generation) as their nations spend decades dragging themselves out of debt.

"Pay dearly for the honor of hosting our Games" is a scam the Olympics have pulled for over a century now, and it's a scam that the world's cities are finally catching onto. The 2022 Winter Olympics are the next Games to be awarded, and as it turns out, city after city is declining the "honor" of hosting them.

Residents of Krakow, Poland overwhelmingly rejected the idea of hosting the 2022 Games, leading city officials to withdraw Krakow's bid on Monday. This follows Stockholm, Sweden's leaders' decision to withdraw; Munich, Germany's voters' rejection of an Olympic chase; and Davos/St. Moritz, Switzerland's defeat of a referendum on hosting the Games. For those keeping count, that's four of an original eight host cities which had considered hosting the Games.Two more cities' bids, while not technically dead, may as well be: Lviv, Ukraine is having real military issues and can't afford to waste time thinking about the Olympics, while Oslo, Norway's bid is floundering politically.

Why the sudden mass exodus from hosting? Because cities with an eye for financial reality have seen the results: Russia spent $51 billion on the Sochi Olympics, an incomprehensible sum for any nation but particularly one teetering on the edge of political turmoil. China spent $40 billion for the 2008 Beijing Games. Montreal lost nearly a billion dollars hosting the 1976 Games, and it took 30 years to pay off that debt. Nagano, Japan, which hosted the Olympics in 1998, apparently still hasn't paid off its debt.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/does-anyone-want-to-host-the-2022-winter-olympics-195531135.html

I've always said that it's stupid to build these great multi-billion dollar sports complexes and infrastructure for an Olympics, use it for 2-3 weeks, and then let it rot while the citizens pay off the debt for decades. Look at the pictures now of Olympic venues from the past and they are ghost towns literally falling apart.

Governments still seem to want the Olympics in their country...obviously for political reasons. But if you put it up to a vote, the citizens usually reject it because of the costs.

It's not the Olympics itself, nor the sports, nor the athletes that are the problem....it's just too much money and corruption is now involved in this. Russia spent $51 billion for a Winter Olympics. Who in their right mind would want to spend that for 2 weeks of games?