The Olympics Are Kinda Bad, Actually - SOME MORE NEWS

Hi. This week, we're looking at the Olympic Games, how they never bring the expected benefits to host cities, how they're mired in corruption, and what we could do to fix them.

Hosted by Cody Johnston
Executive Producer - Katy Stoll
Directed by Will Gordh
Written by Lon Harris
Edited by Gregg Meller
Produced by Jonathan Harris
Associate Producer - Quincy Tucker
Post-Production Supervisor - John Conway
Researcher - Marco Siler-Gonzales
Graphics by Clint DeNisco
Story Editor - Tom Reimann
Head Writer - David Christopher Bell

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro
02:04 - History
06:05 - The Olympics Hurt Their Host Cities
20:43 - The Olympics Are Full of Corruption
26:19 - The Olympics Ignore Human Rights Abuses
37:50 - The Olympics Are Terrible For The Environment
43:03 - Fixing The Olympics

[seadog]

My wife’s grandmother was at the 1936 Olympics as part of Poland’s Olympic committee. An aristocrat, she was seated near enough to Hitler that he got pissed and ordered her and the other Poles to be reseated, at some point, a photo of her and Hitler were taken together and the photographer provided her the pic (not sure how or when). Years later, when the Nazis were on their way to storm the palace, she grabbed the photo, put it in a frame, and waited for the officers, telling them she was personal friends with Hitler and showed them the photo as proof. The Germans effectively put them under house arrest but didn’t harm anyone. So, there’s that.

[sshdfr]

Billions for games, but never enough money for universal health care or homelessness.

[davexmit]

"Keep politics out of The Olympics" Ok, then there should be no country representation. No nations or flags. Just individual people competing. Because countries are literally a representation of politics, and nothing else.

[majesticunicornturle]

Budapest's people consider the city stepping back from the olympics as one of the biggest wins for the little remaining democracy in Hungary

[thDayAdventures]

Imagine any 5 white guys walk up and say "we're imagine dragons." You have no choice, you have to believe them.

[NocturnalTyphlosion]

"99% of [Hitler's] ideas were bad, with that last 1% being riiiight at the end there" i love whoever wrote that

[le]

I seem to recall that Jesse Owens said Roosevelt treated him worse than Hitler and the Nazis, which says a lot about America.

[thejapanarchocommunist]

I actually protested the Olympics when it happened in Japan a couple of years back. The pandemic was in full swing yet they still decided to hold it. To make matters worse, the Olympics headquarters displaced the homeless living nearby, plus the stadium was built by human trafficking victims from Southeast Asia that were tricked by the yakuza into working.

[jackjill]

But without the olympics how are all those athletes supposed to have sex with each other?

[Unbreathless]

Ahead of their bid for the 2010 Vancouver/Whistler Olympics, the BC government cut several social programs, including the Children's Commission, which investigates child deaths.

The cut led to 700 cases being orphaned and forgotten in a warehouse, leaving the parents without answers into the causes of their children's deaths.

[ladyteruki]

Hi, French person here.

> 11:50 The supposedly temporary legislation allowing that algorithmic monitoring actually encompasses trials before and after the Olympics. The 4 Taylor Swift concerts held in May were also included in the "experimentation", for instance, as well as other cultural events like the Fête de la Musique (the music festival held on June 21st in the streets ; "random" neighborhoods were monitored), without warning in advance so that it cannot be opposed in time. If you were attending one of these concerts, thank you for training the data without your knowledge ! And if you're coming for the Olympics, thanks for training the data too ! Experiments will continue until morale improves (or at least until December, but there are already plans to extend it).
> Then there's the ~35 000 cops that will be mobilized in the area this summer. If you've kept up with our protests last year, or the Gilets Jaunes protests before that, but also the 2022 Champions League final fiasco, or, hell, any event really, you know how violent they can be. To make sure they are equipped properly for more violence, the government bought them 78 millions€ worth of grenades last fall. I feel safe, don't you feel safe ?
> On a different topic, Solideo, the entity in charge of making the Paris Olympics happen, has been proven to hide the human cost of the work done in the past few years. It doesn't report all of the deaths (at least 7 have been reported by the press), and minimizes how many accidents have happened on construction sites related to the Olympics (at least 181 accidents that we know of). This, while some reports show that there have been undocumented immigrants working on some of the Olympics sites, but because they were supervised by subcontractors, Solideo says they don't know anything about it, nor about their work conditions. Of course several Solideo employees having been suspended for racist behaviors (...do you know how bad things have to be for people to be suspended for racism in France ?!) is probably not relevant to this topic.
> And since we're looking into human rights abuses, hey, how about we mention the displacement of thousands of unhoused people and migrants in busses ? It started last year with busses telling people they would be driven to shelters, only to find themselves hundreds of kilometers away overnight (some reports claim even Belgium was sent some of them). A big "clean up" that led to lots of vulnerable people being sent away from what little support system they can have in Paris, to places where they don't know anyone and that don't have the infrastructure necessary to care for them or simply house them. This happened while many hotels in the Paris area have stopped renting to unhoused people, hoping to overcharge tourists for the same rooms instead, a loss of an estimated 5000 rooms.
> Also displaced were a few thousands students living in subsidized housing. Last April, aka long before the Olympics even started but also right before their exams, students in a select few CROUS buildings were evicted despite this measure being heavily criticized, in order to make room for Olympics-related staff. The students living in CROUS studio apartments are already underprivileged students who otherwise couldn't afford to study if they didn't have access to subsidized facilities. Some of them were relocated, but not all. They were given 100€ and 2 tickets to the Olympics, which absolutely doesn't offset the cost of a move, let alone of renting anywhere else in the area (which has gotten exponentially more costly, since landlords are hoping to take advantage of tourists ; tell me if you've heard this one). Again for the cheap seats : this happened while they were working on their exams.
> If despite all this you still want to endorse this event and come to Paris for the Olympics, please be nice to the 45 000 volunteers that have been recruited. Not only are they by definition not paid for their participation to the event, but they are paying for their own transportation and housing costs the entire time. Again, in a city with insane prices. They'll be working 6 days a week, 8 hours a day, which is more than PAID work (which is traditionally set at 35h/week). Don't worry, they'll get one sandwich per day. Even coming for the training sessions was also on their own dime ; they have been trained, among other things, to do what is basically unpaid work for the sponsors (including reporting companies/brands that use the Olympics logo without being actual sponsors). Well that's not entirely true : some of these volunteers are "sponsored volunteers", since some companies have paid for their employees to be "volunteers". Those will be housed, their transport costs paid for, given tickets to the events, and of course they're still salaried during their time "volunteering" for the brand that employs them (Sanofi's "sponsored volunteers" account for about 5% of all volunteers, reportedly).
> Hey, did you know that it has cost (so far) 1.4 BILLION € to clean up the Seine, and the river is still not clean ? It's still not clean ! The mayor of Paris has promised to swim in it in July (initially it was supposed to be in June, hence the movement towards sh*tting in the river to show her how we feel about the Olympics), so that's one thing to look forward to. And also Macron promised that too, but he's stopped mentioning it lately ; maybe because it's been proven to still not being clean ? Who hasn't got e.coli yet, come on and take a swim dear athletes, there's gonna be bacteria for everyone !
> And if all that hasn't discouraged you yet, remember that right now, we're a few weeks away from discovering that we might soon have a far right Prime Minister in France. From a party founded by a war criminal and a former N*zi, and everything. We really don't know, it's gonna be a surprise, it all depends on a surprise election with a very short campaign, which will end in early July. Fun stuff. Expect some agitation if that happens, because there's almost certainly going to be a pushback if a white supremacist who loves Putin gets that seat.
I could go on but it's a miracle if this comment makes it as it is XD

Personally I urge people not to support the Olympics in any way. Don't come (you're going to be paying 3x or 4x times what you should for your stay anyway), and don't even watch it. We collectively have the power to make the Olympics unprofitable so that these things stop happening. It's not that hard to not watch the Olympics. There's plenty of other things to watch this summer ; you still haven't caught up on all the shows you complained about during Peak TV, I bet.
But even if you choose to watch, at the very least, don't come. Please don't come.

[rosethorne]

I remember reading a report about a Brazilian favela that had been begging their local government for infrastructure repairs for decades. (This was for the Rio Olympics...)

When Brazil was nominated to host the Olympics, they needed a place for a new stadium. They lied to the favela residents and said that they would build the stadium nearby, and in the process they would refurbish the roads and bridges and everything.
Instead, they razed the favela to the ground, without bothering to try to help the poor residents relocate. They built the stadium where the favela used to be.
The stadium is too big for any local sports team to use, and too expensive for any local business to buy and repurpose.

Thanks for discussing this, Cody and Showdy Folks!!

[faintlymacabre]

There's a strange kind of comfort in being able to rest assured that there is absolutely nothing that can't be perverted and poisoned by money.

[Kite]

The Rio Olympics was the first time I realized the Olympics were an elitist event. IDK, seems like having to bulldoze a bunch of slums to make room for arenas that only get used for a week is a sh*tty idea! Love you Cody Showdy!

[Alex-cwrz]

As an Urban Planner, the removal of the olympic town planning event was the biggest mistake in the history of sport and why cody is completely correct.

[LadyGameProfessor]

Fun Fact:
The US has lost out on gold medals because our World Champion's boss refused to give them time off to compete in the Olympics!

Unlike in some other countries, American Olympic athletes are not compensated for their time. Plus, the athletes are completely responsible for ALL costs related to competing in the Olympics. Not just the costs of training, coaches, and equipment - they also have to cover the costs of travel (for themselves, their families, AND their coaches) and pay for the expensive "designer" uniforms they are required to wear. Those who compete in more popular sports can sometimes get sponsors, but that's not an available option for a lot of our athletes.

Source: I personally know a few Olympic athletes.

[jennymunday]

I'm glad Denver turned down the Olympics years ago. We'd still be paying that shit off.

[christopherjustice]

Why don’t we just build two stationary Olympic complexes? One for the summer games and one for winter.

[terpsidance.]

Man I can't believe every few years Sonic and Mario go and ruin a city so that they can play some games together....

[pavarottiaardvark]

The Qatar World Cup stand as the crystal clear example of how things work: it did result in *some* labor rights reforms, but it absolutely caused *a lot* of worker abuse and death.