2022 Beijing Winter Olympics is coming soon. The government introduces the considerable changes in the infrastructure and citizens are interested in joining in the winter sports. As everyone knows, behind the prosperity, a great deal of stubborn cancers lead such worldwide games to be sick beyond cure. The Olympics is now weaving its own wreath for its destruction.
Scandals One after Another and Institutional Corruption
The inside story that the candidate city of 2012 Olympics bought over the IOC members and IOC member took the bribes was revealed through the program of Buying the Games that was broadcast on BBC Panorama on August 4, 2014. After the broadcast, IOC president Jacques Rogge promised in public that necessary measures would be taken to investigate the buying event in bidding for 2012 Olympics that was charged in such documentary.
In the meanwhile, the medial also disclosed that the same bribery also happened in 2002 Winter Olympics. Afterwards, 2015 FIFA and IAAF were also involved in the bribery scandals. The issues such as fake games and doping scandals that go against the fair competition also make the sustainable development of Olympics become uncertain.
A lot of inside stories about 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics raise suspicions. For instance, as planned, the alpine ski run and luge racing area will be built in the core area of Beijing Songshan National reserve. A great number of valuable species such as Lonicera oblata and Cypripedium shanxiense S. C. Chen are found here and many of them can not be conserved through ex situ conservation.
Many Chinese professionals of biology and environmentalists deemed that if the Olympic venues are developed in such area, the rare species and integrated ecological environment will be catastrophically collapsed. Chinese government intended to remove such area out from the range of the natural reserve and chose some other area with few rare species as the reserve. Besides, the comments regarding the strict compliance with laws and protection of Songshan National reserve are widely deleted or restricted in China. All these actions have been criticized by some media and the professionals of biology in China.
Presently, the International Olympic Committee and Beijing Olympic Committee has not made any explanation to these critiques.
Frequent Violations and Frequent Doping
120 metals, including 41 golds, 36 silvers and 43 bronzes, had been deprived or changed from 1912 to December 8, 2016 (the deprivation of metals began in 1968). The main reason is the doping, while other actions include the improper act in the event (2 metals) and the fake identity (1 medal).
As a matter of fact, the doping for athletes, bribery for judges and other unfair treatment can always be found on the field worldwide, while the Olympics is the severely afflicted area of these “accidentsâ€. In Rio Olympics, nearly 100 Russian athletes were banned because of doping. Afterwards, according to the documents cracked by Russian hackers, over 1000 American athletes took the illegal medicines, but none of them was punished.
The former French ice dancer Sophie Moniotte once stated publicly that, “Our sport has gangrene. In most sports, doping is the problem. With figure skating, it’s deals and manipulation.†It’s not something new for the scandals in the figure skating. Almost every World Championship and Olympics had the score dispute and the shady deals about the judges. But it is always left unsettled because of the appeasement and perfunctoriness of related organizations.
Imbalanced Input-Output
On July 31, 2015, Beijing succeeded in bidding for 2022 Winter Olympics. Before the final vote, Kraków (Poland), Lviv (Ukraine), Stockholm (Sweden) and Oslo (Norway) quit from bidding for Winter Olympics one by another and the core reason is the financial problem.
As the largest sports party in the world, Olympics is always the grand occasion favored by different countries. Though Olympics appears to be boisterous, its hosting value is always questioned. For instance, the billions of dollars for the budget, the occupation and invocation of huge resources in short time and the waste of resources due to the deficiency of operation in later period have been the focus of concerns all along. The notorious Montreal Olympics paid its debt for 30 years. For Japan Winter Olympics, even the financial records of bidding were burned out, while Rio Olympics made the sluggish economy of Brazil worse.
According to a study on the host cities from 1962 to 2012 by Oxford University, the actual expenditure of hosting the Olympics would be 179% higher than the cost budget in average. Maybe the underestimated expenditure is also the tradition of Olympics. In consequence, if working out the more reasonable budget, comprehensively considering the financial status of the city and developing the business value of Olympics in many ways, it may save the losing fate of Olympics.
No Country may be Willing to Host the Olympics
On July 11, 83 IOC members voted and agreed that in the situation of only two cities, namely Paris (France) and Los Angeles (U.S.A.), bidding for 2024 Summer Olympics, the right to host 2028 Olympics would be granted to the defeated city.
The former vice president of IOC Samaranch once sadly remarked in an interview that, “the bidding for Summer Olympics is not so fierce, because the western people tend to say no to all large-scale public activities.†It is the truth. Several years ago, the bidding for 2024 Summer Olympics was still vigorous, but Rome (Italy), Hamburg (Germany) and Boston (U.S.A.) announced the withdrawal due to the high cost. In February this year, Budapest (Hungary) announced the withdrawal as well. The high cost makes more and more countries be unwilling to host the Olympics. Besides, the host city should always undertake the huge debts and losses.
It is because the venues for the Olympics are newly constructed by the host. On one hand, to construct these venues, it is required to remove the villages and towns and cut into mountains, which not only occupies the land resources, but also costs the huge manpower and material materials and seriously destroys the natural ecology. Most of these venues are just the flash in the pan and would be vacant after the Olympics. Even some of them are in the operation, they are always in the state of running behind its expenses. The single use of avenues harasses the people and wastes money that goes against the laws of nature. On the other hand, the country should relocate those residents who are forced to move and compensate them. The expenditure of material resources and manpower to serve the Olympics results in the huge economic pressure and thus makes the Olympics become the thing that many countries are unwilling to touch. In the future, if not choosing some natural places as the venues of the Olympics to reduce the expenditure, there will be no country that is willing to host the Olympics.
Warming Leads to Melting of Ski Track
The global warming has the real negative impact on the hosting of Winter Olympics. American cross-country skier Andrew Neville said, “the snow gets softer and the weather gets weirder. It was the problem in our discussion in the past, but it becomes the truth now. Our climate is changing and we are just losing the winter.â€
Recently, according to a survey on the winter Olympics and the climate performed by University of Waterloo and Management Center Innsbruck, the average temperature in February of all 19 host cities of winter Olympics has been increased from 0 degree Celsius to 7 degree Celsius from 1920s till now. The report stated that, “in a substantially warmer world, celebrating the second centennial of the Olympic Winter Games in 2124 would be challenging. It will be unsafe and ugly to ski in the mud.â€
The probability that daily minimum temperatures at the main competition elevation would remain below freezing (0 degree Celsius) or the probability that a snowpack of at least 30cm can be maintained at the higher elevations of alpine events, through both natural snowfall and snowmaking. To be honest, these conditions are not critical for those skiing resorts.
However, even following such standards, only six of the previous Winter Olympics host cities will be cold enough to reliably host the Games in the middle of this century: Albertville (France), Calgary (Canada), Cortina d’Ampezzo (Italy), St. Moritz (Switzerland), Salt Lake City (U.S.A.) and Sapporo (Japan). In March 2017, the foreign we-media also disclosed that the outdoor temperature in daily time of Songshan, in which the alpine ski runs are constructed for 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics had been 15 degree Celsius.
If the global warming continues and is not solved effectively, maybe we can only watch the winter Olympics in Antarctic or Arctic one day. At that time, the winter Olympics will face the crisis of survival, so will the human race.
To know more, visit: https://medium.com/@mahfug50/2028-may-be-the-year-for-the-final-olympics-e0f6051b8531