The Olympics from the inside: 100 days to go

At the time of this writing, we are only 100 days away from the Opening ceremonies, and here are a few headlines from the last few weeks to show how we are doing.

The Olympic Village debacle: The construction of venues required was finished very early in the process. Thank God! With the recession hitting us last year, we weren’t trapped in the situation of having to complete at the last minute the way that Athens appeared to. While we are using a lot of existing venues (Look for changes at the hockey tourneys.), there was a fair bit of building to complete and we apparently did all of this under budget and early. The only sore point was one of the two Olympic villages built in the downtown core (The second one is in Whistler itself). This was always going to be a large project – imagine a small town centre being built on downtown soil – but thanks to the collapse of world-wide economies, it got very nasty. The builder ran out of money, the debt sold to secure financing suddenly couldn’t be serviced, and the hedge fund looking after it went insolvent. Of course, the tax payer is going to have to pick up the built, because the payments outstanding on the site match the annual budget of the entire council, or something just as alarming.

As of today, it is unfinished, but work continues apace, and it is to handed to the Organising Committee today. The apartments were going to be sold to individuals after the games anyway, so at least the City will reap the benefits of that, but not as much as originally planned. Also planned was a plan to earmark a percentage of the apartments as low income housing. While it is a tough pill to swallow, I believe we shouldn’t be doing that, now. We should get as much money back as we can from this ‘investment’. Financially, we are still in good shape, and very high-end purchases, such as ticket packs, and travel plans, are picking up. I think the hundreds of residents that thought they could earn a vacation by renting out their homes for the games are going to be disappointed, though.

THE TORCH RELAY: The Olympic torch touched down last week, and has started on it’s cross country tour. WAY too much First Nation involvement for many people’s liking, especially as it was held back by native people’s protests (see last blog), the first evening it travelled, but definitely a sense of pride about the country, and a sudden alert that we are only a few weeks away from the puck drop to this thing.

SECURITY: It was announced today that 90% of Security personnel have been hired. Now the fears start that these were mostly recruited from Craigslist, and may be ‘the bottom of the barrel’ as far as employers go! It must be nice to feel you are respected as you work for almost nothing in the coldest time of the year, pissing people off, and NOT enjoying the once-in-a-lifetime experience that you are guarding!
Considering the U.S. has spent millions securing their border, and the overall security bill is $1 Billion, it’s a pity we couldn’t be more positive about the front line folks we hire.

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The Olympics: Mixed Media Messages

So who is against this global event convening in their back yard? Well, don’t expect a cogent answer from the media. In our City there are two major groups that continually upbraid the populace for supporting The Games. One is native-rights group that state that the land the games are being contested on is stolen, and belongs to them. Given that a second’s thought? Good – let’s move on. The second one is an Anti-Poverty group that protests on a regular basis that…..well, I didn’t know really. The fact that poverty in the city is bad, I suppose – or perhaps that there is poverty in the World. It’s something like that. While there has always been some ‘rhubarb’ from the back of the room that this exercise will cost a lot of money, it is these two groups that are always heard from when any announcement is made from the organising committee. “We have finished our building one year ahead of schedule.” Comes the clarion cry from VANOC HQ, closely followed by either: “Oh yeah? Well the entire process is being held on land that us First Nations’ land.” or “That is an unbelievable amount of money being spent, considering that there is poverty…somewhere.” Perhaps these negative comments have to be listened to, to be balanced in your reception of all messages, but there haven’t really been anymore. I would have thought that once these groups have been heard from once or twice, that would be all we needed to know about their existence, but No. Every time we get a Pres Release from the organising committee, there is a competing one from one of these two groups. My main problem with this is that the usual shit-storm stirring that the Press feels it must do while, at the same time, proudly boasting that they are “The Official TV/Radio/Newspaper/Blog of the Olympics. We aren’t children. We know that the Olympics are going to get a lot of press, and you want to be a major part of it. We KNOW! So while you are busting a gut to get the five rings connected to your corporate logo in front of us courtesy of your ability to get into our houses, do you really have the right to drag these burbling hand puppets out in front of us every single time to advertise yourself to us? The mixed message here is that the media are desperate to have you watch, read, or listen about this massive event on their channel, they can’t help showing that the very act of hosting this behemoth of PR causes angst in the hearts of about 0.25% of the populace – well, thanks a lot. Here is a story for you. The Olympic medal design was unveiled last week. Made mainly of cast off, junked computer parts harvested by those no doubt under the poverty line, they were made (and covered in Gold Silver and Bronze, I hasten to add), by the Canadian Mint – which is out of province. No poverty or First Nation issues there, I think, but a story you probably won’t get anywhere lese, because it doesn’t have the tension that the media require to report on.