Sunday, August 29, 2004

 

Higher,Faster,Stronger

Finally, the Summer Olympics is over.Despite all the fears that Greece would not be ready they proved that they had what was necessary to prepare for an event as huge as the Olympics. Caribbean people could do well to learn for WC 2007. Anyway, I found the Olympics to be somewhat boring. Maybe I no longer look at it with innocent eyes in the light of all those drug stories making the news. This Olympics was kinda flat too in that I could not really identify the one athlete that really stood out..the one who had this little extra spark. In Sydney we had Marion Jones and Cathy Freeman who were kinda larger than life as well as Ian Thorpe in the swimming pool. The standout person for me in Atlanta was Marie Jose Perec so I guess I have been a bit spoilt and probably expected too much.

Anyway, the Caribbean performed creditably gaining 36 medals and for the second Olympics in a row we have some Golden Girls. I don't know how many people would have looked at the marathon today but that incident where a man dragged the Brazilian frontrunner off the course and into the crowd was pretty disturbing. All I was thinking about was the Monica Seles incident but thankfully he was not hurt. The next question is where were the organisers who were apparently caught off guard as it was the crowd who freed the Brazilian.By the way what happened to the Kenyans and Ethiopians? Not one finished in the top three.

Then there were the silly comments made by the NBC commentator who was so positive that his medal hopes were not damaged by the incident.I still do not see how he could be so certain because clearly the man was unsettled. Anyway am happy he still was able to come in third. Generally, NBC stunk with their lopsided coverage and not going to the action live.Luckily I was able to catch some of the action live but the days I did not I was stuck with NBC nonsense.

Off to Beijing for the 2008 and version and if am alive I will still tune in and watch as the world's best go head to head while hoping that the cleanest person wins.

Comments:
The Marathon incident was extreemely disturbing. You dont want to have the olympics without spectators but at some stage with all the crazy stuff going on around the world it may come to that.
 
Well Kami the actual "holding" of the events, the facilities and schedule/logistic ran smoothly, the high level of reported satisfaction by althletes and other users indicate success. That is a major plus.

But the cost counting has not stopped yet and they are way into the 100s of millions in that department already. It will take awhile to see how useful the infrasturcutre and facilties will be to Greece's economy. And how they are going to recover the money spent in loans etc.

So these are some of the things the Caribbean governments must be very mindful of. It is reported that nearly all Caribbean countries are living on debt and that places like ANU and SKN have debt more than GDP already. When you build a cricket stadium it must not be only for cricket post WC2007 and one must already have the place book wid events for after CWC2007.

Read more here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3770981.stm
 
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