Blame It On Rio

[Econoline]

[Long Run]

And the Rio story of Olympic nightmares continues . . .

Feb 10, 4:21 PM EST

Olympic ghost town: Bills due, venues empty after Rio Games

By STEPHEN WADE AP Sports Writer


RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) -- Rio de Janeiro pulled off last year's Olympics, keeping crime at bay and fending off dire forecasts of corruption, environmental degradation, and cost overruns.

Six months after South America's first games, the floodgates have burst.

Rio organizers still owe creditors about $40 million. Four of the new arenas in the main Olympic Park have failed to find private-sector management, and ownership has passed to the federal government. Another new arena will be run by the cash-strapped city with Brazil stuck in its deepest recession in decades.

The historic Maracana stadium, site of the opening and closing ceremony, has been vandalized as stadium operators, the Rio state government, and Olympic organizers have fought over $1 million in unpaid electricity bills. The electric utility reacted by cutting off all power to the city landmark.

There are few players for a new $20 million Olympic golf course, and little money for upkeep. Deodoro, the second-largest cluster of Olympic venues, is closed and searching for a management company.

The state of Rio de Janeiro is months late paying teachers, hospital workers, and pensions. The state also reports record-breaking crime in 2016 in almost all categories from homicides to robbery.

"During the Olympics, the city was really trying hard to keep things together," said Oliver Stuenkel, a Brazilian who teaches international relations at the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian university. "But the minute the Olympics were over, the whole thing disintegrated."

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BETTER IMAGE, OR WORSE?

The Olympics - and to a lesser extent the 2014 World Cup - showcased the reality of Rio, a city romanticized for its sprawling beaches, annual Carnival celebration, and sensual lifestyle.

It also exposed the city's crime, environmental contamination, and corruption.

Some building projects connected to the Olympics and World Cup have been tied to a probe which has led to the jailing of dozens of politicians and businessmen for receiving kickbacks in Brazil's largest corruption scandal.

Three politicians who were instrumental in landing and organizing the Olympics - former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, former Rio governor Sergio Cabral, and former Rio Mayor Eduardo - have been under investigation. Cabral, an early promoter of the Olympics and World Cup, has been jailed on corruption charges.

"The Olympics gave people a better sense of the difficulties Brazil faces," Stuenkel said. "Maybe not a better or worse image, but more rounded."

---

UNPAID BILLS

Sidney Levy, the chief executive officer of the Rio organizing committee, tried to run the games with only private money, and almost succeeded. His $3 billion operating budget - the budget for running the games, not building the infrastructure - was frugal by Olympic standards. At the last minute, he had to ask for a 250-million-real bailout - $80 million - from the city of Rio and the federal government to run the Paralympics.

Eventually, he got only 100 million reals ($30 million), and the shortfall has left organizers owing creditors millions.

Today, Levy says he's nearly a forgotten man.

"I could call the president of the country, and the call was taken," Levy said. "But try it today. I could call the IOC and everybody. But now people have other things to handle. We are no longer a priority."

Levy said organizers probably lost about $200 million in income during the run-up to the games as sponsors backed out of expensive deals as the recession kicked in.

Levy said he has not asked the IOC to help pay debts, but acknowledged the Olympic body came up with millions in advance money several times during the run-up to the games.

"The whole thing was too painful," Levy told The Associated Press. "We never really enjoyed the games, themselves; 2016 was just extremely hard. It's like we were climbing Everest, and ice is falling on your lips, and you are not seeing."

---

WHITE ELEPHANTS

The Olympic Park is a ghost town; sleek sports arenas without events, deserted before they were even broken in, and well-tended flower gardens, free from pedestrian wear-and-tear.

"The arenas are beautiful," Wagner Tolvai said, walking inside the park with his girlfriend Patricia Silva. "But it's all abandoned, everything has stopped. Nobody is here."

He likened the 2.5 billion real ($800 million) park to a new shopping mall "without stores, or customers." The park is only open on weekends, and there's not much to do but walk, pedal a bike, or look for shade.

Four permanent arenas are being run by the federal government. Among them is the Olympic tennis center, which was used earlier this month for a one-day beach volleyball tournament. This in a city with endless sand and beaches.

Two temporary venues for swimming and handball have yet to be dismantled. The exterior of the swimming venue is falling apart and many translucent tapestries that covered the outside of the building are frayed or falling to the ground.

The warmup pool, which was covered during the games, is filled with muddy, stagnant water.

Away from the park, the famous Maracana stadium has drawn the most attention. It was renovated for the 2014 World Cup at a cost of about $500 million. It was largely abandoned after the Olympics and Paralympics, and then hit by vandals who ripped out thousands of seats and stole televisions.

"The Maracana is the biggest symbol of the way the games were managed," said Mauricio Santoro, a political scientist at Rio de Janeiro State University. "The vast majority of people in Rio will never go to the golf course, or the Olympic venues. But the Maracana is different. It's the jewel of the crown."

Up the road from the Olympic Park, the $1 billion Athletes Village - it housed about 10,000 athletes - is fenced off and empty. The developer says it has sold only 260 of the 3,604 apartments - about 7 percent.

Rio's Globo newspaper reported that new Rio Mayor Marcelo Crivella is arranging low-cost loans for public employees to buy the units.

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SUBWAY AND BUSES

Transportation projects driven by the Olympics look better than the sports venues.

The games led to a subway line extension, though at the reportedly inflated price of $3 billion. They also produced a high-speed bus network, a light-rail line, and a pedestrian-friendly, renovated port area. Rio's international airport also got a makeover.

People using the new subway line have benefited, though city traffic is still snarled.

But many of the improvements benefit mostly the wealthy south and west of the city.

"The gains were unevenly spread across the city," Stuenkel, the political scientist said.

---

TOKYO 2020 ADVICE

Levy, the CEO, said Tokyo's 2020 Olympics will face completely different challenges.

"They have a society that works pretty well already," he said. "They don't have to prove anything to anybody."

Tokyo will face higher costs than Rio, and organizers are already looking for places to cut.

Levy suggested reining in sports federations, which all want five-star treatment. He used an example from the equestrian events.

"They wanted 15 horse ambulances," Levy said. "We offered nine. In the end, the right number was four. The magic of the games doesn't come from these things."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/ ... TE=DEFAULT

[Burning Petard]

This seems to be the fate of all the 'olympic venues' for the last several decades. Lots of promises about how wonderful it all will be, lots of confusion and graft in the actual accomplishment, a trash-filled slum and lots of local empty pockets after.

snailgate

[rubato]

The only Olympics which made money was L.A. . The rest have been a worse investment than wooden sailboats.


"a hole in the water into which you pour money"

London fucked themselves twice over because most of the usual business left town in advance out of concern for the extra traffic. London cab drivers were pissed.


yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

The only Olympics which made money was L.A. . The rest have been a worse investment than wooden sailboats.


"a hole in the water into which you pour money"

London fucked themselves twice over because most of the usual business left town in advance out of concern for the extra traffic. London cab drivers were pissed.


yrs,
rubato

Your usual "dumb as a bag of bricks" reply then Aspergers boy.

The UK economy has seen a £9.9bn boost in trade and investment from hosting the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, research suggests.

The report, for the UK Trade and Investment department (UKTI), said the Olympics resulted in:
£2.5bn "additional inward investment", 58% of which was outside London
£5.9bn additional sales following Olympic-related promotions by the Foreign Office and UKTI
£1.5bn high value overseas contracts - such as helping to design venues in other host-nations

THE ORGANISING COMMITTEE FOR THE LONDON 2012 OLYMPIC GAMES (LOCOG) HAS TODAY PUBLISHED ITS FINAL REPORT AND ACCOUNTS FOR THE SIX-MONTH PERIOD TO 31 MARCH 2013.

These will be the final accounts prepared by the company, which should shortly be placed into a solvent Members Voluntary Liquidation. Over its eight-year lifecycle, LOCOG has successfully achieved revenues of GBP 2.41 billion through private sector revenue programmes and contained costs at GBP 2.38 billion. The full report can be viewed on the London 2012 website.

London 2012 Olypmic legacy reaches £13bn
The UK economic benefit from hosting the 2012 Olympic Games has reached £13bn, as Japan plans to collaborate with UK companies on the Tokyo 2020 Games

The economic legacy from the London 2012 Olympics has reached £13bn as UK companies capitalise on the event’s success to work on the Rio 2016 and Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The UK has agreed to collaborate with Japan on planning the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games and the 2019 Rugby World Cup, which should lead to further benefits as a result of the successful 2012 Olympics.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit the Olympic Park on Friday to watch as a Memorandum of Co-operation between the two countries is signed.
The Toyko Games are potentially worth billions to the UK economy and supply chain deals could benefit SMEs, according to the department of Business, Innovation and Skills.
UK companies have won £130m of contracts from the Brazil 2014 World Cup and the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

[Bicycle Bill]

Consider that there have been Summer Olympic Games in something like 15 different cities since 1960:
1960 — Rome
1964 — Tokyo
1968 — Mexico City
1972 — Munich
1976 — Montreal
1980 — Moscow
1984 — Los Angeles
1988 — Seoul
1992 — Barcelona
1996 — Atlanta
2000 — Sydney
2004 — Athens
2008 — Beijing
2012 — London
2016 — Rio de Janeiro

and Winter Games in 14 different cities in the same time period:
1960 — Squaw Valley
1964 — Innsbruck
1968 — Grenoble
1972 — Sapporo
1976 — Innsbruck
1980 — Lake Placid
1984 — Sarajevo
1988 — Calgary
1992 — Albertville
1994 — Lillehammer
1998 — Nagano
2002 — Salt Lake City
2006 — Turin
2010 — Vancouver
2014 — Sochi

Why can't the IOC pick, let's say, six or seven of these sites where the basics are already in place and rotate between them, and then use funding to upgrade the existing facilities rather than building brand new?  It's obvious that it would be less expensive to upgrade an existing bobsled run or ski jump or velodrome or stadium or natatorium to the current state of the art than it would be to acquire property and build brand new from the ground up.  And it is not at all out of the question that the national organization from whatever countries might be involved would be able to use the newer, upgraded facilities for training at the highest levels rather than depending on infrastructure that is hopelessly outdated, or duplicating expenses to bring them up to current standards.

-"BB"-

[Lord Jim]

Why can't the IOC pick, let's say, six or seven of these sites where the basics are already in place and rotate between them, and then use funding to upgrade the existing facilities rather than building brand new?

That makes sense to me, but as long as you have cities and countries lining up to pay big bucks to the IOC for the "prestige" of hosting the Olympics, they have a pretty strong financial incentive to keep the system just as it is.

[Lord Jim]

London fucked themselves twice over because most of the usual business left town in advance out of concern for the extra traffic. London cab drivers were pissed.


yrs,
rubato



Your usual "dumb as a bag of bricks" reply then Aspergers boy.

Here's what I've never understood...

You would think that even a halfway intelligent person who has over and over again been bitch slapped and shown not to know WTF they were talking about after posting things that they were so sure were true they didn't bother to check them, at some point would learn the obvious lesson from this.

You would think, (to use a recent example) that this person, before posting that there is no security process for boarding European high speed rail, would stop and think to himself, "Now wait a minute, it's been a little while since I was last there, and there have been several terrorist attacks since then. Maybe I should take a few seconds to check and make sure this is still the case, so I don't wind up looking like a know-nothing dumb fuck yet again."

But not our rube...

One of the hallmarks of higher intelligence is self-awareness (it's one of the things that separate us from the lower animals) but rube seems to have none...

Another indicator of intelligence is the ability to learn from experience and apply those lessons (even many lower intelligence animal species have this ability)...

This doesn't seem to be functioning for rube either...

Unable to gain a realistic understanding of his knowledge base nor to learn from his repeated errors, rube is destined to just keep fucking up, over and over and over...

Of course there's an alternative explanation...

Maybe rube is just a kind and generous soul, a born humanitarian, who deliberately fucks up just so he can give others the pleasure and satisfaction of correcting him...




Naw, that ain't it...

[rubato]

Table
Host City Year Final Operating
Budget Total Costs Taxpayer Contribution Profit/Loss Year Debt Paid Off Notes

United Kingdom London Summer Olympics 2012 US$10,400,000,000[43] US$14,600,000,000[44] US$4,400,000,000[45] GBP £nil[46] 2012 Additional costs include $90 million for converting the Olympic Stadium (London) to a football venue[47]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

Nil. As in zero.


Well looking at the real facts not the "alternative facts" GOB used to conclude that brexit was a good idea, the London Olympics at the most optimistic were a zero; the business lost by displacement was just offset by the games.

Well he likes Brexit and Boris Johnson (Trumps mini me) so he must love Trump and "alternative facts".

yrs,
rubato

[Gob]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_the_Olympic_Games

Nil. As in zero.


Well looking at the real facts not the "alternative facts" GOB used to conclude that brexit was a good idea, the London Olympics at the most optimistic were a zero; the business lost by displacement was just offset by the games.

Well he likes Brexit and Boris Johnson (Trumps mini me) so he must love Trump and "alternative facts".

yrs,
rubato

So, even if we take your (out of date) figure as read, how do you square it with this;

London fucked themselves twice over because most of the usual business left town in advance out of concern for the extra traffic. London cab drivers were pissed.

Come Aspergers boy, how does, breaking even equal to "fucked themselves twice over"?

The UK economy has seen a £9.9bn boost in trade and investment from hosting the 2012 London Olympic and Paralympic Games, research suggests.
A report by the government department which promotes UK businesses put new contracts, sales and foreign investment in the last year down to the Games.
Government estimates put the cost of hosting the Games at £8.9bn.
'Creative accounting'
Prime Minister David Cameron said "a lot of deals were done" around the time of the Olympics.

The report, for the UK Trade and Investment department (UKTI), said the Olympics resulted in:
£2.5bn "additional inward investment", 58% of which was outside London
£5.9bn additional sales following Olympic-related promotions by the Foreign Office and UKTI
£1.5bn high value overseas contracts - such as helping to design venues in other host-nations

Much of the Olympic park and stadium for the Winter Olympics in Russia was "designed and built by British businesses", Mr Cameron told BBC Radio's Test Match Special.

Oh, and do learn how to edit your tables properly.

[Scooter]

$40 million in unpaid bills on a $3 billion budget, considering how many sponsors pulled out due to the recession, does not sound like anything remotely resembling the catastrophe that the writer is attempting to portray. You want to see catastrophe? Try reading the history of the 1976 games in Montréal.

[Lord Jim]

Come Aspergers boy, how does, breaking even equal to "fucked themselves twice over"?

Easy...

It's rube math...

It's the same "math" that makes 51% higher than 63%, and makes the difference between 1945 and 1972 17...

It's a well established pattern with him:

the (small number of) republicans (who supported it)

Once again the fellow who proved he couldn't read a simple one column table, and concluded 46 is 1/4th of 80, brings us the unique perspective of Rubatoan Mathematics:

In the 26 major civil rights votes after 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 percent of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 percent of the votes.

[See http://www.congresslink.org/civil/essay.html and http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/un ... .04.x.html.]

H.R.7152 passed the House on Feb. 10, 1964. Of the 420 members who voted, 290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it.

Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats supported it 152-96. Republicans supported it in higher proportions than Democrats.

"Rube Math!
Ru-u-ube Math!
It won't do you a bit of good to review math...
It's so stupid, so very stupid,
That only a moron can do it!"

ETA:

Next Week...graphs!

ETA:

One of the most hilarious elements about rube's claims regarding his "math skills" is the way he brags about his ability to calculate his taxes...

There are only two possible explanations regarding that...

The first is that he's lying...

It's utterly inconceivable that an accomplished woman like his wife would really let someone as math challenged as this innumerate stumble bum be responsible for filing her tax returns...(anymore than letting him own a gun or a puppy...Two other things she apparently has had the good sense to not let him do...perhaps she lets him take a shot at filling out the form, and then has a high school student check his math before actually filing it....)

The other explanation for why she would let rube prepare her tax submissions is that she's having an affair with the local IRS agent in Santa Cruz, and she wants to have an excuse to meet with him by having him call her in for tax audits...

[BoSoxGal]

All the rubato hating aside, the Olympics ARE a disgusting waste of resources as presently constituted - they should pick a summer venue (Greece) and a winter venue (with climate change, best to make it someplace in Canada, as the Russians can't be trusted) and revisit them ad infinitum.

[Jarlaxle]

The Athens Olympics are a big reason that Greece is broke.

[BoSoxGal]

There are many other reasons that Greece is broke.

But it's the logical placement for summer Olympics ongoing, and the infrastructure presumably could be refreshed at a fraction of the cost of someplace else building anew.

All participating nations should chip in for maintenance of the facilities, proportional to team size.

That's my plan and I'm sticking to it.

[Jarlaxle]

Or just recognize the Olympics as the fossil they are and stop burning billions.

[BoSoxGal]

I'd sooner see professional sports go before semi-amateur sports.