- The Cat

You neutral?

But, for heaven’s sake, let’s just drop this idea of Sochi [and Russia] hosting the 2014 Olympic Games. There’s plenty of time to change venues. Six years is more than enough time to select and set up another venue.

coldwarrior on August 19, 2008 at 1:10 PM

Cool! How about my backyard? I should be able to get that monster-grill, by then. Feeds 10 people, I hear…

Not so much as to reward or punish nations…but to keep the image and the spirit of the Games on a higher plane.

How about Olympics held only in neutral nations? Liechtenstein, Austria, Andorra, or Sweden or Switzerland for the Winter Games, for example?

Makes sense, right?

But, it really is about the money.

Winter Games don’t bring in the really big bucks…but they do generate a very large chunk of money. Not the billion dollars or so that Beijing will haul in (after “expenses”), but a good chunk of cash, nevertheless.

Anyone really want Russia to rake in $200 million or more for hosting the Olympics (the international symbol of sportsmanship, friendship, brotherhood and a world united) just an hour’s drive from the Georgian frontier?

Yeah…let’s move the Winter Games to a neutral location…same with the Summer Games…permanently.

But, for heaven’s sake, let’s just drop this idea of Sochi [and Russia] hosting the 2014 Olympic Games. There’s plenty of time to change venues. Six years is more than enough time to select and set up another venue.

Pull out, now.

It’s even more unbelievable to me that Russia would risk its Olympics with this stupid invasion of Georgia.

And the games aren’t so important that it’s always “the show must go on.”
Spirit of 1776 on August 19, 2008 at 10:07 AM

Have to disagree with you on this one.

When the IOC refused to move the Games, the US led a boycott that punished athletes and did nothing to free Afghanistan.

That’s a sweeping statement. Any athlete that agreed with the boycott was a patriot, not a victim. And the games aren’t so important that it’s always “the show must go on.”

In reality, I think we want as little disturbance from normal life/routine as possible.

You can make them mad, but you can’t shame them, because they have no capacity for guilt.

This is such a simplistic statement and smacks of the same logic that has human rights abusers and thise abetting genocide on and running the UN Human Rights Commission.

How about Saudi Arabia, The Sudan, or Uganda to name a few.

coldwarrior on August 19, 2008 at 8:37 AM

Sorry I didn’t make myself clear:

I know it wouldn’t punish the athletes; that’s why I say it’s a good idea to pull this venue in advance.

What I don’t want to see are the sort of things that were demanded by some at the China Olympics because of the situation with Tibet. I believe it was wrong to award Bejiing the Olympics in the first place, but once it was a done deal, the idea that, say, we shouldn’t attend the opening ceremonies, was silly (and thankfully Bush did not heed these demands).

Changing the venue would not punish the athletes.

Having the athletes within a 15 minute drive from Abkhazia, and subjecting them to the potential for terrorist acts…that’d be punishing them.

Punishing Russia, depriving them of millions in fees, millions in television broadcast rights, depriving them of millions in tourist dollars…perfectly appropriate.

I’d suggest offering it to the runner-up cities..Salzburg has the facilites, as does P’yongchang, South Korea.

Prague – Georgia’s president and its government are responsible for the conflict with Russia, Czech President Vaclav Klaus wrote in a Czech newspaper on Monday.

“So far as responsibility for the outbreak of the war is concerned, the role of the president, the government and of parliament is indisputable, and clearly fatal,” wrote Klaus in Monday’s edition of the Prague daily Dnes.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=24&art_id=nw20080818114220707C634423

I don’t want to see individual athletes being punished, or a lot of silly protests going on at the event itself.