The Rio Games begin next week, but what has happened in the city is "already a cautionary tale," according to HBO’s Jon Frankel. Tuesday’s edition of HBO's “Real Sports” examined the IOC and the Olympic movement, and Frankel noted the IOC "demands that host cities do whatever it takes to stage an Olympics that will capture the world’s attention, but the cost is often devastating, not just in dollars but in human suffering.” Frankel said Rio "committed to spending nearly $15 billion on the Games," and that "was before Rio’s oil boom went bust." Now Rio locals "say those commitments to the IOC are coming at the expense of everyone else." Frankel: "If history is any guide, Rio’s problems could linger for years. In 2014, I visited Athens, Greece, 10 years after that city tried to pay for an Olympics in the midst of a recession. The city was broke and its landscape marred with decaying monuments to waste.” Rio's contract with the IOC "stipulates that the host city’s cut of the Olympic revenues is ‘determined by the IOC, at its sole discretion,’ and no surprise." Historically, the IOC "has kept the majority of the revenue for itself, to fund luxuries like the new headquarters it’s building in Switzerland." Housing activist Theresa Williamson said, "That’s actually one of Rio’s Olympic legacies that it’s taught the world … the damage the Olympics can bring.”
SOCIAL REALITIES: HBO's Bryant Gumbel noted there is a "yawning gap between the ideals the IOC espouses and the social realities attendant to buying into what they’re selling." Gumbel: "For years ... the lords of the Olympic rings -- the roughly 100 members of the IOC -- have been selling the world a captivating and idealistic message that their Games are about much more than sports, they’re about making the world a better place.” However, human rights lawyer and former Olympic swimmer Nikki Dryden said the IOC has "convicted criminals," members who were “part of the Salt Lake City bribery scandal that continue to serve in senior positions." She said it also has two members “who have been accused of plagiarizing their PhDs.” Gumbel: “What the IOC doesn’t have is a lot of women. In fact, until the 1980's there weren’t any.” Gumbel noted many members are “wealthy royals." Others are "sheikhs, sultans and barons, many of whom seemed to have been bequeathed seats previously held by their parents.” Norwegian reporter Frithjof Jacobsen said that Oslo withdrew its bid to host the '22 Games because "it was just this semi-corrupt entity of people who lived on a different planet that said, ‘We come to Norway, just give us everything we want.’” Gumbel cited numerous cases of bribe-taking and the selling of votes by IOC members. He said, "Even those who once believed deeply in the Olympic movement are wondering if this pattern will ever end.”
BIDDING PROCESS: Frankel said he is “most surprised" he did not hear people in Rio asking "when is the IOC going to wake up and say, ‘Let's hold these Games in one place every four years.’” He said the reason for it is "then the bidding process stops and when the bidding process stops, well the bidding stops.” Gumbel said the IOC has a “degree of leverage when they have a bidding process” but it is “running out of countries that are willing to play the game” (“Real Sports,” HBO, 7/26).
