Rio Olympics - New logo

[jerrywall]

Just kidding... sort of.

[David]

Seems appropriate for this year's games.

[SoonerDave]

These games are the biggest joke I've heard of in my lifetime. Absolutely absurd they would put athletes at risk as they are this time around. Embarrassment for Rio and the IOC IMHO.

[jerrywall]

I think the methods to choose the locations for the olympics have become a total joke, and this year is really proving it. I just wish they'd pic a few regular hosts and rotate between them. Or hold the games in Greece permanently (it might help their economy).

[jn1780]

Chicago would have been a safer and better place to hold the Olympics and that's saying something. I will be surprised if Rio gets through these next two weeks with no terrorist attack.

[sooner88]

I wouldn't be surprised to see investigations similar to FIFA... there seems to be as much widespread corruption here as well.

[Zorba]

I think the methods to choose the locations for the olympics have become a total joke, and this year is really proving it. I just wish they'd pic a few regular hosts and rotate between them. Or hold the games in Greece permanently (it might help their economy).

I completely agree with this. It is just a waste to continually build venues all over the world, often in places no major event will ever go to again. They then saddle the local population and sometimes the whole country with huge amounts of debt and little long term benefit.

[Snowman]

I think the methods to choose the locations for the olympics have become a total joke, and this year is really proving it. I just wish they'd pic a few regular hosts and rotate between them. Or hold the games in Greece permanently (it might help their economy).

Many of the Greece's 2004 venues were abandon and already heavily deteriorated, it has already been pretty well proven the games themselves lose money for the host city as the deals are currently done, outside of the IOC starting to paying a significant portion for the building and maintenance of venues that is unlikely to change. There is still some argument that it may at least help get political will to do things that could help in the long run like improving transportation systems or other items, depending on the city there are arguments that it just displaces normal tourism during the events.

Several papers did stories on the Athens venues rotting away during the 2012 games, possibly the 2008 as well. Looks like some are doing again for this year http://www.thisisinsider.com/photos-...-venues-2016-7 (though the photos look like they have not been updated from at least 2012, maybe earlier). There are reports the ones in a massive city like Beijing are not faring better, there are just such a wide variate of events, there are few places that they are all popular enough they need that large of venues for every event. Another issues is most seem to have done next to no planning ahead of time for later use, London and Atlanta were two of the few that planed and got use out of most of them after the games left, which some criticized as making the experience worse for the guests (Atlanta for being spread out, London for building temporary structures or temporary extension of permanent structures). Sidney apparently at least eventually found uses for most, pretty much every other one I have heard anything else about in the last few decades hardly sound closer to Athens and Beijing.

[jerrywall]

I know venues do lose money, but if they were able to reuse the facilities (IE, as permanent or semi-permanent hosts) it seems like they could be profitable. The other option is to get rid of the dumb "single city" rule. Imagine an Olympics hosts say at Dallas, Austin, and Houston, with shuttles of some sort for attendees. I know there are logistic issues, and this may not be the best example, but still, it seems like there are other options that could be considered. Some "out of the box" thinking?

[SoonerDave]

The photos of abandoned facilities is really sad. I guess in a microcosm of irony, OKC has its own abandoned Olympic venue in the aquatic center at OCCC, although there was at least an effort to use it for several years after the Olympic Festival in '89. Photos like that always leave me with this eerie, gut level feeling of waste and uselessness...saw some simliar pics of the old Apollo launch pad down at Cape Canaveral...big blocks of steel and concrete with the words "Abandoned in place" spray-etched on them. Just bizarre...mankind builds, uses, then leaves behind his own tombstones. Just sad. I realize you don't repurpose something as specialized as a softball stadium or TaeKwonDo arena, but still it would seem some better planning would have created resources usable beyond the Olympics.

[Zorba]

I know venues do lose money, but if they were able to reuse the facilities (IE, as permanent or semi-permanent hosts) it seems like they could be profitable. The other option is to get rid of the dumb "single city" rule. Imagine an Olympics hosts say at Dallas, Austin, and Houston, with shuttles of some sort for attendees. I know there are logistic issues, and this may not be the best example, but still, it seems like there are other options that could be considered. Some "out of the box" thinking?

A huge benefit you would get out of semi-permanent, rotating hosting is they would become big training grounds and would be put on the circuit for all the major leagues. You still have the problem that you'd never fill up a 40,000 seat swimming stadium outside of the Olympics, but with proper design and planning you could probably temporally expand the venues during the games then shrink them when the games leave.

I think if there were 4 or 5 permanent host cities for each type of Olympics it could work out quite well. That would also allow 8 to 10 countries to be a host. It would also hopefully give you winter Olympic cities that actually have snow.

[ChrisHayes]

I find it funny how it's the summer olympics, but it's WINTER in Brazil right now!

[Snowman]

I find it funny how it's the summer olympics, but it's WINTER in Brazil right now!

Looking at the temperatures, winter in Brazil is a pretty decent temperature for outdoor games, it was colder in London during their summer.