Two Solutions to the Difficulties of the Olympics: Of Many

If the news about the Olympics this summer is any indication, it may be the most disastrous and controversial in recent history. What's for sure is it won't be an extravaganza cementing Brazil's status as a modern nation, as China's did. More likely it will be a Zika spreading, sickness inducing, crime riddled event, which will either include performance enhancing drug athletes or no one will be there from Russia.

Performance enhancing drugs are the current blight upon all sporting events from the professional sports of the Untied States, to the Tour de France, and the Olympics. Their nebulous involvement strains the belief of both participants and viewers, who turn a cynical eye upon all results. In recent years methods to detect the use of illegal substances have seemed to curb their use, with the last five Tours won by clean cyclists and the cessation of the Era of Steroids. Yet, the systematic support of doping during the Sochi Olympics by the host nation threatens the ideals of international competition.

In summary of the New York Times article; as early as 2013, Dr. Rodchenkov, the head of the anti-doping agency of Russia, developed a three drug cocktail mixed with alcohol. He also aided the Russian intelligence agency in developing a method to clandestinely break into the tamper proof bottles used to store samples. During the event itself, members of the anti-doping agency and intelligence agency worked in the middle of the night, illegally removing tainted samples and replacing them with clean samples taken six months previous. Athletes were complicit as well, aiding officials with identifying their contaminated urine. They evaded every protection instituted by the the International Olympic Committee.

The IOC has a complex and extended method of testing for cheaters. In addition to routine testing, it tests medalists after events along with random testing, and continues to test samples at regular yearly intervals up to ten years later. Renewed testing of the 2008 Beijing games has discovered thirty-one athletes who cheated, and could be banned from Rio. Testing as late as ten years from the event allows the IOC and the anti-doping agencies to develop new techniques. But it undermines the validity of the viewing experience, knowing everything that occurs can be overturned. Olympic officials have essentially condoned the idea that results are not final until ten years past the event.

To bolster the prestige, and retain the viewers, the Olympics need to ban any nation that uses its resources to break the rules. Any nation, whether it is Russia, China, South Africa, or the United States.

If the IOC is unwilling to sanction those nations which conspire to cheat through the use of PEDs, then perhaps the only competition should be table tennis.

But this is only one problem. The more serious problem is the expense of hosting the Olympics. The cost has become increasingly prohibitive in recent years. The highest grossing Olympics earned $300 million in 1988, Seoul. More commonly nations end in debt with the most worst losses being; Vancouver 2010 (1 billion), Sydney 2000 (2 billion), and Athens 2004 (15 billion). This doesn't include Japans 1998 Olympics whose cost is unknown (or Sochi or London whose costs haven't been finalized yet), but wasn't repaid until 2015. Even these numbers distort the true cost. Taxpayers are expected to fund transportation and athletic facility projects, such as Brazil is doing for 2016 or Boston was expected to do if it won the bid for 2024.

Boston won the United States Olympic Committee's approval to appeal to the IOC to host the 2024 Olympics. Initial estimates pegged the cost at roughly thirteen and a half billion dollars. This started Boston's bid dramatically lower than Beijing's $44 billion, Russia's $51 billion, and slightly ahead of London's $10 billion. Boston 2024, as it was called, promised no public funds would be spent, but rumors spread that they were having difficulty fund-raising. Further rumors flourished, Boston 2024 was pushing for the use of public funds. Eventually the 2024 campaign pressured Mayor Marty Walsh and the Governor Charlie Baker to pledge the Commonwealth to the Olympics, but the mayor wanted to see the revised financial report. The campaign said there was no time, and he wisely agreed to terminate the bid.

The same will be true of other cities as the cost continues to expand and citizens no longer approve of paying for an event that does not benefit them. Part of this is the rising cost. Seoul's 1988 $4 billion dollar event costed four times any previous Olympics. In the next twelve years the cost only increased by $2 billion (Sydney, 2000), but just four years later the cost was $15 billion (Athens 2004). If that seems an extravagant increase, consider four years later the expenditure increased to $44 billion (Beijing 2008). London's $10 billion was a welcome decrease, but it, Russia's $51, and Boston's 2024 bid, along with the amount spent on Brazil's 2016 show (the cost of which won't be fully known for awhile), demonstrate there will be no return to the smaller events pre-Seoul. The cost of the Olympics is increasing exponentially and no democratic nation can (or should) compete with authoritarian excesses to host it.

The solution is simple: Athens should be the permanent host of the Summer Olympics. The cost of new stadiums, transportation, and tourist traps will only need to be spent once, and then maintained through smaller expenditures. Greece has the most historic claim on the Olympics. Additionally, this would aid the financial situation of the Greek government and its creditors. When the games move every time it costs more than it creates, but if one city were made the perpetual host the benefits of tourism would outweigh the costs. Some nations will complain, but many in the west will be relieved to no longer pay for the privileged of being an occupied city: of transportation swamped by tourists for only a short time, of privileges granted and laws changed to benefit the athletes and IOC members, and of stadiums left empty after their singular use.

What once used to be a prestigious event, bring the Olympics to your city, may soon be an antique of the past. Not Boston, nor any city, needs the IOC to highlight their achievements when it comes at such a cost.