Rio's Sporting Carnival - Source The Economist

Latin America

The Olympic games

Rio's sporting carnival

Oct 2nd 2009
From Economist.com

Rio de Janeiro will host the 2016 Olympic

 games, the event’s first visit to South America

AFP

THE founder of the modern Olympic games,

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, insisted that taking part

in the event was equally as important

 as winning. The gloomy delegations

 from Chicago, Tokyo and Madrid wil

l find little consolation in the baron’s

 philosophy as they trudge from

 Copenhagen on Friday October 2nd.

The members of the International

Olympic Committee decided that the

 host city for the 2016 summer games

 will be Rio de Janeiro.

The delight on the faces of the

 representatives of the winner,

 Rio de Janeiro, equalled any beaming

 gold medal winner. A huge crowd of

 whooping cariocasgreeted the news,

relayed to a huge TV screen on

Copacabana beach, with

 unabashed delight. The celebrations

 are well earned. Years of dedication

 and hard work go to moulding na

 Olympic champion and this is

 mirrored by the preparation needed

 to win the votes of committee

members from every corner

 of the world. All four cities

 produced fat “bid books” explaining

 why they would be the Best

 showcase and listing the projected

 costs of stadiums, roads and accommodation.


The pre-tournament favourite

 was knocked out early on. Chicago,

thought by many to be in the box seat,

 was surprisingly the first city to be

 eliminated, despite a visit to

 Copenhagen by Barack Obama.

 Tokyo followed soon after. Many developing

 countries are reckoned to have

shown solidarity with Rio—and th

e event had never before been

 staged in South America. Madrid

 was thought to have only a slender

chance mainly because the 2012

 games will be in London.

Tokyo may have suffered because

 the games would be held only eight

 years after Beijing triumphed,

troubling those who advocate

 sharing it around more widely.

Politics, supposedly, does not

 count either. Chicago, a town known

for political machinations secured

the personal backing of its

 adopted son, Mr Obama.

 He asked the IOC to “choose America”

 and to witness the “incredible

 diversity of the American people.”

 Chiacago's resounding loss

 is something of a blow to his star power.

The Brazilian city’s high crime

 rate may have counted against

 it with some delegates, but most

 will have concluded that Rio’s vibrancy

will add to the allure of the games.

 And Brazilian enthusiasm for sports

other than football will not have

 gone unnoticed—beach volleyball,

 a relatively new Olympic sport,

is a Brazilian favourite. In fact the country

 will have a useful run at hosting a big

 sporting event when it stages the 2014 soccer world cup.

But is staging the Olympics

such a great coup? The pluses may

 seem obvious. Big building projects

 will employ lots of people who Will

 spend their wages in the rest of

 the economy. Railways and roads

 will be built that might otherwise

 have stayed on the drawing board

 for years. Visitors will come from

 far and wide, either for the games

 or as tourists afterwards. That AL

l sounds especially alluring in a recession.

The pro-Olympics lobby tends to

 downplay the disadvantages.

 Building in the host city may push up

 wages and prices and crowd out

 investment elsewhere. Hurrying up

 building projects raises costs.

 What suits the games may not be

 best for the city afterwards.

 Not every visitor during the games

 is an extra one; tourists may time

 long-wished-for trips to watch

 the sport. Crowds or inflated

 hotel prices may deter others from coming.

By and large, economists have

 found it hard to detect the benefits

 of big sporting events. Robert Baade,

of Lake Forest College, near Chicago,

 describes the Olympics as a “high risk,

 low reward proposition”, but concedes

 that the games may prompt spending,

 say in transport, which boosts a region’s

 economy in the long term.

The right event at the right time can

 give a city a lift: Barcelona, host in

 1992, is a case in point. However,

 Stefan Szymanski, an economist at

 Cass Business School in London,

suggests that hosting the Olympics

 may be a mark of recognition: the

 effect rather than the cause of

 change. If so that should also count

 as another reason for wild

 partying deep into the Rio night.

Source: The Economist
www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14576...