Olympiad
So this week is the first bit of the XXth Olympic Winter Games in Torino. The first thing that I noticed when I heard about Torino was ‘where in bloody hell is Torino?’ It’s not one of those huge, well-known cities. It’s not even a small, well-known city. The second thing I noticed was that the media couldn’t decide whether to use Torino or Turin and so they decided to use both. That really bugged me for some reason.
I’m not a huge sports dude, so the only time I follow athletics is when something like national pride is on the line. Case in point: Salt Lake 2002. Gold-medal hockey. Canada vs. USA. And boy did we hand kick them in the pants. Very nice, watching it at my cousin’s on their projector. See, that’s national pride there. We weren’t about to let the Americans take the medal for our game. The best part was at the end, when the camera was pointed at Dick Cheney after the Americans got beaten by us.
Another time was World Cup 2002. My AZNsian pride flared up as Japan and Korea were both doing surprisingly well. Japan lost somewhere about halfway and so everyone was watching Korea as they caused an outrage when they whooped Italy and went on to the semi-final match.
And now, there’s Torino. Quite honestly, unless something comes up in hockey again, I’m not going to be that interested. However, with the advent of the Olympics, I always enjoy having a look at the host cities. That’s one of the reasons why I wasn’t that interested in Torino. There’s just nothing there to me.
The 2008 Olympics, however, holds a bit of significance to me. The 2008 Summer Olympics are hosted by Beijing. There’s that Asian pride thing going on again. But, Beijing beat out the city I believed should have taken 2008: Toronto.
From what I’ve read, Toronto easily had the best bid of the bunch. The only reason Beijing won was because of politics. It’s not a secret that Beijing was pretty much already decided before the vote even began. Toronto had the best plan and some ingenuity in its Olympic plan and it would have really beautified the city’s Harbourfront. The reports had nothing bad to say about Toronto. And even though Beijing was the heavy favourite, the report still mentioned something about human rights issues in China.
The Olympics were going to a country with a particularly bad record of human rights abuses over a city with a solid bid because they were promised a games after they lost seven years prior.
The thing that gets me is all that could have been. The vote happened in 2001. It’s five years now since the host city was decided. Think about what would have happened in that time. At the moment, the TTC just raised fares again, no one really likes living here and the government is playing tug-o-war with funding for the city. Instead, we could have a totally awesome downtown and skyline being under construction, have tons and tons of funding for the city, and have some pride in our city.
But thanks to Beijing, all of that is going to Vancouver. In fact, some would say the reason Vancouver is getting the 2010 Winter Games is because they felt sorry for Toronto. That, of course, makes no sense since Toronto’s not feeling any more prideful any more than the Harbourfront is getting prettier. And so Toronto got screwed over again, and for at least another decade or so.
“Toronto easily had the best bid of the bunch”
wow, what drugs were you taking, boy? really, do you know how many more taxes we’d have to pay… how crammed our city already is.. imagine millions more people here. and where would we put the stadium. we barely have space to build homes.. we have homes that are right next to high voltage lines. so that the next generation of kids born from that area can have friggin deformities.
i’d say, let it go to beijing. china should have a chance to show the world that they aren’t just a poor people land. besides, its not like anyone in the states or the rest of canada wanted it to go to toronto anyway. you can’t have it in the same continent twice in a row.
Beijing had two strikes against it: pollution and human rights issues. The first could be dealt with in time for 2008. The second is more ideological and isn’t exactly the best to align with the ideals of the Olympics.
Toronto’s plan was the most compact ever, with everything centering around the waterfront. Right now, there’s nothing there. It would have been the first time an Olympics has been held in a city’s core.
Toronto also had support from all three levels of government. Of course the States didn’t want us to get it. That would ruin their chances. Same with the rest of Canada. They hate Toronto anyway.
So, the bid, which is a combination of the plan and technicalities and the support of the people, was easily the best one.
The last time North America had it was in 1996 and 2002. The only reason Vancouver got 2010 was because Toronto lost and it was seen as a second prize for Canada.
I think that we should have gotten 2008 and then Bejing would have had a clear shot at 2012, since most of those cities have already hosted before anyway. Now, Toronto is screwed for the next decade.
what about the taxes? eh? the TAXES! did you know montreal is STILL paying off debt for the building of their olympic stadium from way back when?
and shoreeee… the waterfront. cause that’s the only space left in the friggin city and we want to cram it all in the last free space we had.
Yes, because we obviously aren’t paying taxes for Vancouver. If we’re paying taxes to fund an Olympics, I’d rather it be in our city.
Considering the waterfront is ugly as hell right now, cramming everything there makes for a plan that’s compact (which is important for the athletes, since the Olympic Village would have been a short walk away from ALL the events instead of all across the entire province like some Olympics were) and prettier than what we have right now.
Of course, we could just listen to our government and build another power plant there.