The Winter Olympic countdown is on, and right on schedule we learn that the Sochi Games are over budget.
It's something that plagues pretty much every Olympic Games. Not only are they expensive for host countries, they frequently become more expensive than originally planned. The 2014 Games, it appears, are more expensive than any of the previous events by a long shot. The numbers are now playing to the tune of $51 billion.
I am a supporter of the Olympics. I know it's less idyllic and more political than they try to let on, but I still think it's an important global event and healthy for nations to compete together in a peaceful manner. It's a great way for people around the world to connect, as they travel to host countries and interact. We don't always mix well together, but generally it's an important way for us to come together every couple of years in celebration of the best our countries offer.
Regardless of how much I enjoy the Games, despite the politicizing and commercialization, which does help pay for them, we don't need to go overboard. While each event does go overboard, leave it up to the Russians to pass it off like the word restraint simply doesn't translate into their language.
Spending 25 times as much as the Vancouver Games is a little overkill.
The Olympics are important, but at some point organizers have to look at what they're doing and ask themselves some tough questions. Their job is to ensure they have facilities in which the athletes can safely compete. Those venues don't have to make last year's venues look like shelters. They don't need to be dazzling.
It's the same as the opening/closing ceremonies. Nobody should feel obligated to one-up the previous year's ceremony. China beat us all and we should all just accept that. They really have their game together. Nobody else will be able to match them.
Pumping that much money into an Olympic event is a little crazy. It makes you question our priorities just a little bit.
I generally think that people who find sports, all sports, a ridiculous waste of time are bitter, unco-ordinated people. That doesn't mean there can't be legitimate arguments against what lengths we go to in order to compete.
Hearing that the ski jumping venue ballooned from US$65 million to about $250 million, is a head scratcher. Apparently it happened because the site they picked was the worst possible location in all of Russia.
Needless to say, Putin was not humoured by this decision. To a man who is, at best, perceived as being confused by the term humour, the worst thing he could possibly become is a laughing stock. If $51 billion doesn't make people chuckle, nothing will.
Maybe Russia has never been very fond of the idea of restraint, and it's definitely showing in their Olympic planning. The dollars pumped into Sochi are insane. The planning committee has clearly lost all sense of control over their project.
But I do hope it's a great show come February 2014.
