Same time, same place
Skidmore faculty expert Jeff Segrave wants stay-at-home Olympics
Trouble in Rio? Skidmore’s Jeff Segrave has a fix. A professor of health and exercise sciences and an Olympics scholar, Segrave argues for creating just a few permanent host sites.
Jeff Segrave, Heatlh and Exercise Sciences
It’s not the first time he and others have made the argument, and here he discusses the idea in a podcast on the eve of the 2016 games. “With the Rio Olympics,” he says, “we have the perfect storm of political, economic, environmental, health, and organizational issues, all at a time when the integrity of sport is under serious assault.”
Economics
The Olympics have never been held in South America, which is not unimportant to the Olympic committee and its mission of spreading a philosophy of international peace.
But another reason the games are being held in Rio is because sponsors like Adidas and Nike are eager to break into new markets, and when Brazil applied to host the games seven years ago, it had a booming economy. But now the country is “in a time of economic bust,” Segrave says. “They were flush with money when they applied for the games; now, the money has been flushed.”
Environment and health
Although the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control haven’t issued health advisories against traveling to Rio, the area is a known hotspot for the Zika virus. Still, Segrave notes that for many athletes who’ve chosen not to travel to Rio -- golfers such as Jordan Spieth and basketball star LeBron James -- it’s because “the Olympic games are not the zenith of their sport.” By contrast, “Athletes for whom this is their one chance to reach the pinnacle of international acknowledgement have not said they are not going to go.”
As for the much-reported water pollution, he says, “the biggest problem of all is in Guanabara Bay, where some of the swimming and sailing events will take place.” Rio has already acknowledged that it won’t be able to clean up the bay to the levels it had promised, and Segrave says, “Some of these beaches would have been closed in America, with the level of pathogens still there.”
Politics
Political dysfunction in Brazil has put the country into stalemate. “The government has imploded. This the perfect storm politically,” says Segrave, citing the impeachment proceedings against the president being led by a legislator who is also under corruption charges and potential impeachment. In fact, many think a similar fate awaits the president’s replacement. Meanwhile, numerous members of congress are also being investigated for corruption.
According to Segrave, all these issues (not to mention the bidding scandals and municipal finance problems in former host cities) could be avoided if the Olympic committee would settle on permanent hosting. He suggests the summer games could rotate among five permanent sites, one each on the five continents representing the Olympic rings. The winter games could have three sites, in northern areas of North America, Asia, and Europe. If one Olympic center came under political or economic assault, the games could move to one of the alternate sites, since all would maintain suitable infrastructure for hosting the event.
This way, Segrave says, “the games can continue to travel the world,” but having permanent sites would remove the events “from these political, social, and economic environments that -- always, it seems, in recent years -- threaten their very existence.”
