"Chicago Loses the Olympics
And good riddance. South America deserves one of these things. Go Rio!"
--- Ezra Klein progressive blogger at WaPo
TW: The above quote sums up the attitude of many Americans. In many ways it sums up my own views. It certainly sums up the attitude of many of my non-Chicago friends. The Olympics are a pain (several wags already claim losing while embarrassing in short-term for Obama is in the long-run good as he avoids association with the potential cost overruns, corruption and hassles associated with modern day Olympics) and/or we are just blase about the idea of another Olympics in the U.S.
Then add to these folks, the nattering nabobs of negativity of some jackals on the right who cheered the loss due to parochial political jealousies and ill will (cheering blindly for the U.S. certainly has certain limits for those folks- torture/jingoistic wars yes, association with Obama's home city not so much).
One ends up with a nation exhibiting the symptoms of a fatigue and cynicism. We have become grumpy old farts, more concerned about our personal comfort and parochial concerns than growing our national persona- if the Olympics come here great, if not so be it. Very European actually. We are the aging adult to the eager late teen/young adult of the emerging markets.
Do you think the Brazilians '16, Chinese '08, Australians '00 or South Koreans '88 had the same hesitations?
When the day comes that the U.S. cannot get excited about Olympics, one should ask whether we need to re-gain some energy and enthusiasm. Chicago is embarrassed and frustrated by the first round knock-out, but everyone realized defeating Rio was going to be challenging. Given the voting evolution, I think a final round vote would have been a decisive Rio victory even had Chicago made it that far.
The U.S. has lived off its economic, military and cultural momentum for many years. But as I point out often, the competition is getting tougher. I see the Olympics as a metaphor for U.S. competitiveness generally. Two of the top U.S. cities have crashed and burned in the last two selections. The last time we had the summer Olympics in the U.S. it was a mediocre production. Others are raising their game, perhaps we need to as well.
2 comments:
Interesting--seeing the Olympics as this kind of metaphor.
Here is why I was glad to see Rio get them:
I saw what the Olympics did for Seoul. The Games brought vast infrastructure to that city, preserved a massive piece of green space for it, and truly marked the end of the country's tour as a second-world, post-war nation. (Did you know they qualified for Peace Corps support as late as 1971? And just *17* years later were hosting the Olympics? Amazing.)
It was re-born as a first-world nation with a world-class city, and though I don't know what their balance sheets look like from the actual event preparations and revenues, I do know that they've reaped that harvest many times over by becoming so well-structured.
What an opportunity for Rio!
It'd be neat to see Olympic Games in a US city that could also use a new birth.
I do not begrude Rio the victory at all. They wanted it worse as a nation and perhaps need it more, but then that could be said of many cities outside the U.S. (or Europe).
I do begrudge American attitudes as outlined in the posts. Americans need to step up their game.
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