A river that is home to about 100 saltwater crocodiles is given the OK to host Olympic and Paralympic rowing and canoeing events at the 2032 Brisbane Games.
The comedy of this story aside, as a resident of inner-city Brisbane, I am so dreading the fucking Olympics coming here. They haven’t even started building the stadium at Victoria Park yet, never mind the fact that it’s a stupid site for it in the first place.
It’s really stupid that the Olympics don’t just rotate between the cities that have held them before. The Olympics were in Sydney in 2000, a lot of the infrastructure to support it should be still there, so just do it there again.
Or just hold them in Athens where it originated, or better yet, abolish them altogether.
From The Doubter’s Companion: The Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense:
OLYMPIC IDEAL The Greek games began in 776 BC as a competition among amateur athletes from the different city - states. The purpose was to bring the citizens of the rival cities together in an apolitical gathering, which would reduce squabbling and develop a larger sense of community.
The rising merchant class in those cities subsequently inverted their purpose by introducing the idea of city rivalry into the games. The city - states then began subsidizing their athletes indirectly and often invisibly. The amateur athletes were soon living a parody of amateurism. They had careers and future income riding on the competition. Winners became heroes, that is to say political heroes. They were fed at the cost of the state for the rest of their lives.
Subtle corruption gradually turned into rank dishonesty. Athletes were eventually bribed to lose. In AD 394 the games were abolished because they had become a parody of the amateur idea, a focus of corruption and a source of political rivalry.
The Olympic Games were re - established in 1896 as a competition among amateur athletes. One of the purposes was to bring citizens of rival countries together in an apolitical gathering. What the Greeks managed to do in 1,170 years, we have done in less than 100.
The comedy of this story aside, as a resident of inner-city Brisbane, I am so dreading the fucking Olympics coming here. They haven’t even started building the stadium at Victoria Park yet, never mind the fact that it’s a stupid site for it in the first place.
I’m so, so glad my home town of Hamburg, Germany, rejected the idea of applying for the Olympic circus in a public vote.
Don’t need the billionaires shit show to clog up and uglify my city. We already achieve that by ourselves.
Well at least the rowing won’t be anywhere near you.
It’s really stupid that the Olympics don’t just rotate between the cities that have held them before. The Olympics were in Sydney in 2000, a lot of the infrastructure to support it should be still there, so just do it there again.
Or just hold them in Athens where it originated, or better yet, abolish them altogether.
From The Doubter’s Companion: The Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense:
Yeah, it seems like Brisbane is turning this into an infrastructure Olympics without a clear plan on what it should look like.