The Olympics have been slowly losing their status for a few cycles now.
Certainly not what they were in Sydney 2000 etc.
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That requirement came into effect pretty much as a result of the Indicia and Images Protection Act being passed for the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
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Youāre never going to match an Olympics in your own country with one elsewhere but I really donāt think there has been a loss of āstatusā in the past few cycles compared to ones before Sydney.
The Olympics are still the leading Sport event in the world. No other event is bigger.
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Reported tonight the Brisbane opening ceremony is likely to be 23 July which is 11 years away tomorrow.
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So they arenāt going to do what they did with Sydney and hold it slightly later?
London 2012 was probably the most recent Olympics to leave a reasonable legacy in a host city.
By contrast, I daresay the people of Athens & Rio probably regret ever having their Olympics in 2004 and 2016 respectively!
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It doesnāt make them less memorable to the world though. Athens and Rio were memorable.
Itās true that IOC needed to make sure things changed and the Olympics didnāt become a financial burden on the host city and country for decades to come. Hopefully this will be happening from now on. Brisbaneās bid uses existing infrastructure for 80% of the events to be held.
New IOC rules state it needs to be in the middle of the year July-August timeframe
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I think a fall in linear TVās importance and the way people consume their sport (and the rise of alternative sports) mean theyāre not quite what they used to be.
Rusted on ratings winner still? Absolutely.
But you only have to look at the scenes for Sydney winning in ā93 versus Brisbane.
The Olympics also havenāt been dominated (from an Australian view) by a rock star like Thorpe or Freeman as they were in 2000. A genuine star who could walk down any street in the country and be flocked to.
Itās hard for anything to dominate the conversation as much as it once did given the way pop culture and viewing habits have splintered. Not an-Anti Olympics thing at all, itās just the way 21st century life has gone.
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But that really was all done differently then. There were several cities still vying for the Games in 2000 on the night of the announcement. It also happened only 7 years before the actual event.
Here we are now, 11 years out from the games and the IOC had already ruled out all the other competing cities for one reason or another. We pretty much knew that Brisbane was the last city standing before the announcement, which is why it was hardly surprising or as exciting.
Agree to an extent - but do you really think thereād be similar masses in the streets if it was decided the same way in 2021?
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Well, they seemed to get an outdoor crowd in Brisbane last night, even with Covid restrictions. Maybe if we werenāt in a pandemic and there were a few other cities in the running, more people would have attended the announcement and celebration.
Then again, technology has killed a lot of things and maybe people would be content to just stream the announcement on their phone and go back to doing something else. Sadly, that happens a lot these days.
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The widespread fall-out from the Athens and Rio games in particular (billions of dollars lost, abandoned venues, etc) as well as the various corruption allegations and more widespread knowledge the shadier / unethical internal workings of the IOC have really resulted in a loss of interest from the general public in comparison to what we saw prior to Sydney 2000.
It could still have a renaissance though, have to wait and see.
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Pandemic anyone?
There was still a special event at Southbank.
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These fears were a problem even back in 1993 (no kidding)
Beirut 2036 here we come
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That segment was hilarious.
But in all seriousness, Iām sure the āOur money could be better spent on roads, schools, public transport, hospitals and everything else before the Olympics!ā type commentary will pop up again soon enough.
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But they were fairly well distanced if you look at the crowd. Not all over each other at least. People I spoke to stayed away because of covid.
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Why donāt they push for September? (Sydney did)
Probably because the IOC will only host the Olympic Games in July/August these days.
While the Sydney games being held in September was pretty good for our part of the world, it was less than convenient for the more populated Northern Hemisphere: Up there, people are back at work/school after the long Summer holidays and there are clashes with other sporting competitions.
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