Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 agnosto wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I can't help but think some of this is us in richer countries looking down our noses at poorer ones trying to put on an Olympic Games.

The title already had me wondering, I was 2-3 posts into the thread before I was pretty much sure of it.

Thread suggestions for "countries with appropriate infrastructure"
- USA
- UK
- Europe

hmmmmmm?

I've seen traffic in Bangkok, yeah some countries really do have better infrastructure than others. Though, the BTS was nice and it still wouldn't have the capacity or ability to move that many people to where they needed to go without massive additional work.

I certainly wasn't suggesting the tournament comes here - although it'd be great for the country. I was thinking other areas in Asia could easily fall under the "appropriate infrastructure" umbrella. When were you last in Bangkok? The BTS moves 600k people on an average day, and that's just the skytrain, subway takes another quarter million.

2 short years ago Brazil successfully hosted a tournament larger than the Olympics. Zika is another media hyped ebola/H1N1 to get you talking around the water cooler on monday morning.

 MarsNZ wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I can't help but think some of this is us in richer countries looking down our noses at poorer ones trying to put on an Olympic Games.

The title already had me wondering, I was 2-3 posts into the thread before I was pretty much sure of it.

Thread suggestions for "countries with appropriate infrastructure"
- USA
- UK
- Europe

hmmmmmm?

I've seen traffic in Bangkok, yeah some countries really do have better infrastructure than others. Though, the BTS was nice and it still wouldn't have the capacity or ability to move that many people to where they needed to go without massive additional work.

I certainly wasn't suggesting the tournament comes here - although it'd be great for the country. I was thinking other areas in Asia could easily fall under the "appropriate infrastructure" umbrella. When were you last in Bangkok? The BTS moves 600k people on an average day.

2 short years ago Brazil successfully hosted a tournament larger than the Olympics. Zika is another media hyped ebola/H1N1 to get you talking around the water cooler on monday morning.

I agree that the Zika threat is overhyped by the media and provides a useful scapegoat for athletes to decline to participate for other reasons.

Zika also has nothing to do with Brazil requiring athletes to compete in objectively polluted, contaminated, filthy open water venues.

http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/05/americas/rio-de-janeiro-super-bacteria/
http://olympics.cbc.ca/news/article/rio-olympic-sailing-venue-leaves-boats-completely-brown-with-pollution.html
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/03/what-happens-when-theres-sewage-in-the-water/476013/
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2015/07/30/427693471/testing-by-ap-finds-water-at-2016-olympic-sites-rife-with-human-sewage

 MarsNZ wrote:


2 short years ago Brazil successfully hosted a tournament larger than the Olympics. Zika is another media hyped ebola/H1N1 to get you talking around the water cooler on monday morning.

These olympics have bigger problems than Zika.

When London won the 2012 games I was dead set against it. What use is the Olympics to London, it's already one of the world's top cities, was my view.

In the end, though, I thought the UK did a bang up job. The venues were excellent, the opening ceremony was a tour de force and the volunteer army of helpers really made a huge difference, giving the games a friendly human face.

Let's not forget the real Army, drafted in because private enterprise failed to provide the security staff they had contracted for.

We even managed to spread the love outside London by holding the sailing in Weybridge, the rowing at Dorney Lake and the road bike events around Dorking.

All in the middle of the worst global financial crisis since the 1920s.

I also opposed Lakshi Mittal's ridiculous tower sculpture, but now that has been made into an enormous helter-skelter I fully approve.

So there you go.

feth off China with your ludicrous zillion-billion dollar slave labour centrally directed economy crashing borefest with 1,000 drummers going bong bong bong and the star singer lip-synching.

feth off Brazil with your oppressed masses crammed into teeming polluted favelas within line of sight of the multi-billion super-rich private security compounds. May the poor peoples' gak pour down into the Olympic venues in a literal reversal of the way capitalism has treated the disadvantaged for decades.

Roll on Tokyo 2020!! The world shall see how Japan can organise an infrastructure development project.

Will that be enough time to set up the AGPZ? (Anti Godzilla Protective Zone) or will we be seeing Good Godzilla this time?

Godzilla autowins any Olympic event for Japan except rhythmic gymnastics. Yea Godzilla!

To be fair, the US almost boycotted the 1936 games and might have for lack of of a shill willing to accept a bribe from Herman Goering.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Roll on Tokyo 2020!! The world shall see how Japan can organise an infrastructure development project.

do they even have the open land to do an Olympics?

 LordofHats wrote:
To be fair, the US almost boycotted the 1936 games and might have for lack of of a shill willing to accept a bribe from Herman Goering.

But on the plus side, Jesse Owens

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:
To be fair, the US almost boycotted the 1936 games and might have for lack of of a shill willing to accept a bribe from Herman Goering.

But on the plus side, Jesse Owens

I saw the movie Race the other day, and honestly the part I liked the most was that Luz Long got his due He might not have won the Gold, but he was a real champion.

They should be boycotted, bad infrastructure, zika, raw sewege in the water sports areas, drug resistant bugs have been found in the sewege system and not to mention the Brazilian cops have killed 11 thousand people over 5 years

 MarsNZ wrote:

 agnosto wrote:

 MarsNZ wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
I can't help but think some of this is us in richer countries looking down our noses at poorer ones trying to put on an Olympic Games.

The title already had me wondering, I was 2-3 posts into the thread before I was pretty much sure of it.

Thread suggestions for "countries with appropriate infrastructure"
- USA
- UK
- Europe

hmmmmmm?

I've seen traffic in Bangkok, yeah some countries really do have better infrastructure than others. Though, the BTS was nice and it still wouldn't have the capacity or ability to move that many people to where they needed to go without massive additional work.

I certainly wasn't suggesting the tournament comes here - although it'd be great for the country. I was thinking other areas in Asia could easily fall under the "appropriate infrastructure" umbrella. When were you last in Bangkok? The BTS moves 600k people on an average day, and that's just the skytrain, subway takes another quarter million.

2 short years ago Brazil successfully hosted a tournament larger than the Olympics. Zika is another media hyped ebola/H1N1 to get you talking around the water cooler on monday morning.

I think Thailand would be an awesome place to host an Olympics, just not on short notice as was mentioned in the posts you were responding too.....and maybe not Bangkok; the Thai people are generally so warm and welcoming that the visitors would love it. The BTS is great but it wouldn't go out far enough to reach any areas where construction could be made on the necessary facilities without a substantial growth investment but I'll admit that it's been a few years since I've visited so maybe I'm wrong there and traffic is a real issue though they do a good job with some innovative control techniques like shutting one or several lanes down in one direction during certain times of day.

I agree about Zika but the poisonous water is a bit alarming. "OK boaters, you can have your events on this river, but if you fall in, we'll need the contact of your next of kin..."



Automatically Appended Next Post:

Asterios wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Roll on Tokyo 2020!! The world shall see how Japan can organise an infrastructure development project.

do they even have the open land to do an Olympics?

They don't need it, they'll just have platforms held above the city by giant robots.

 agnosto wrote:

Asterios wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:

Roll on Tokyo 2020!! The world shall see how Japan can organise an infrastructure development project.

do they even have the open land to do an Olympics?

They don't need it, they'll just have platforms held above the city by giant robots.

knowing Japan they would.

I think watching an amateur production Olympics would be rather fun actually. A changer from all the glitz that normally accompanies the fortnight.

 Orlanth wrote:
I think watching an amateur production Olympics would be rather fun actually. A changer from all the glitz that normally accompanies the fortnight.

Indeed. Frankly which of these (summer) sports couldn't be done at your average large university or high school complex?
Just have them in So Cal or something and just have the events at the local UC and Cal State schools. Problem solved. Plus we could route the distance events through Crenshaw, Compton, and Pomona for some real fun. Talk about Running Man!

 Ustrello wrote:
..drug resistant bugs have been found in the sewege system

Drug resistant bacteria are in every sewage system, sewers are actually where many resistant bacterial strains gain their resistance; I wouldn't be surprised if I could isolate highly resistant bacteria from within my local sewage system.

That's not to say that water contaminated with sewage is in anyway a good thing but "drug resistant bacteria in sewage!" is more rabble rousing than something uniquely serious.

 Silent Puffin? wrote:

 Ustrello wrote:
..drug resistant bugs have been found in the sewege system

Drug resistant bacteria are in every sewage system, even particularly resistant organisms like carbopenemase resistant enterobacteriaciae; I wouldn't be surprised if I could isolate CREs from within my local sewage system.

That's not to say that water contaminated with sewage is in anyway a good thing but "drug resistant bacteria in sewage!" is more rabble rousing than something uniquely serious.

As a result, Olympic athletes are almost certain to come into contact with disease-causing viruses that in some tests measured up to 1.7 million times the level of what would be considered hazardous on a Southern California beach.

Vera Oliveira, head of water monitoring for Rio's municipal environmental secretariat, said officials are not testing viral levels at the Olympic lake, the water quality of which is the city's responsibility.

The AP viral testing, which will continue in the coming year, found not one water venue safe for swimming or boating, according to global water experts.

http://www.cnbc.com/2015/07/30/water-in-brazil-olympic-venues-dangerously-contaminated.html

That's not rabble rousing.

Edit: The link is to an older story, but newer stories I've been finding show the exact same results. The water is NOT SAFE.

well if anything this will make for a very interesting Olympics to say the least.

 Frazzled wrote:
Indeed. Frankly which of these (summer) sports couldn't be done at your average large university or high school complex?
Just have them in So Cal or something and just have the events at the local UC and Cal State schools. Problem solved. Plus we could route the distance events through Crenshaw, Compton, and Pomona for some real fun. Talk about Running Man!

Bicycling requires a dedicated velodrome, something that I can't think of a typical university having. Much less a high school. The 50m pool and high diving platform is also a rarity at the high school level, but I think most universities have them.

That's kinda what the LA games were back when LA hosted. And kinda what LA is proposing in their current bid, along with reusing the LA Coliseum. And it's not like we don't have horse tracks, along with professional stadiums for baseball (2!) and basketball. However, as the Olympics is known to be a money-loser (and not just from the bribes), as a metro LA resident, I hope someone else "wins"!

 djones520 wrote:
The water is NOT SAFE.

No suprise as it has raw sewage in it, but its not super special raw sewage.

So, will there be a new line on the medals columns?

Gold Medals
Silver Medals
Bronze Medals
Diseases Contracted*

*Not counting STDs! That gak was already happening.

 kronk wrote:
So, will there be a new line on the medals columns?

Gold Medals
Silver Medals
Bronze Medals
Diseases Contracted*

*Not counting STDs! That gak was already happening.

You also need a line for muggings and one for shootings.


I am expecting some new word records in Rio 2016. just change the marathon route through any number of dodgy urban districts, and Rio has a fair selection, that plus the promise of ineffective policing means the runners will want to move extra fast through those neighbourhoods, right.

The long distance walk events may be problematic.
Official: You will all be penalised for lifting.
Atheletes: Stuff the walk rules, there are dodgy guys on mopeds after us.
Official: Relax those are the official camera teams.
Atheletes: No not those guys, the other scooters shadowing us with the machine pistols and the gang signs.
Official: Oh.