$772 million.
That's the figure that a Spanish University would estimate it cost Canadians to secure our fourteen 2010 Winter Olympic gold medals.
Even putting aside the dollars spent on hosting the Olympic games, $772 million is an awful lot of money to be spending on elite athletes.
I can't help but ponder the value of those Olympic golds to our country. Is there any? People may talk of inspiration, and even were it to be true that Canadians are inspired by excellence in sport, is there any evidence to suggest that inspiration translates into any sustainable action?
Somehow I doubt it.
What I don't doubt however is that our Olympics helped sell a lot of Coca Cola, and that Olympic heroes sell a lot of Wheaties, McDonald's and other less than ideal foods.
I think the concept of the Olympics is a beautiful one.
Unfortunately I think the execution these days not only wastes a tremendous amount of resources that could be used to improve the shape of society, it also helps fuel the success of those very industries that have helped lead to our healths' demise.
Makes me wonder, if we're talking about sport, what $772 million could do for everyday kids, rather than for our super-powered, temporary heroes?
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I'm not Canadian, but I think the Canadians should still be part of the Olympics. There will be some kids who will be dazzled by what they see and get into sport. There will be others who may never get into sport who still enjoy watching it. More importantly, why shouldn't Canada's best get their chance to compete? I'm assuming that, like all elite athletes, they've trained long and hard. Saying the Olympics should be cut is like saying cut funding to elite arts because not everybody enjoys them. They get funded because they represent the absolute pinnacle of achievement and that's its own reward, without them having to solve every social ill as well.
ReplyDeletePlus all that money probably wouldn't go to fund healthy initiatives anyway. It would just go into general revenue.
Out. Did you know prior to their recent acquiescence to sanity, they told the women ski-jumpers the only way they could jump is if they had "sex"-change operations?
ReplyDeleteAnd also OUT for that matter, with the G8s, 20s and any other numbers.
Don't trash the athletes.
ReplyDeleteThe Olympics is big business.
The athletes not only train and compete, they go into debt, delay or limit their education, forgo job and career opportunities, cut off their social life beyond their sport.
Why?
Because they enjoy it, but also because coaches and sports organizations go to great lengths to ensure that kids who are winning will make the sport their whole lives.
The people in the industry of sport need talent to further their own careers and related businesses, and they need kids who will work full time, at any cost, for the "Noble Olympic Dream".
For the very few athletes who win Olympics it's great.
For the also-rans, there is great personal cost when the sports industry says good-bye and moves on to focus on the next star.
Olympic level sport requires athletes, also facilities, coaches, technical teams, medical teams, specialized psychologists, physiotherapists, travel and hotels etc, etc. To compete at the Olympic level means competing against organizations with huge resources and expertise.
The athletes are the keystone of this whole system, but they are not the ones who benefit financially from it except for the very few who take home an Olympic medal.
A T-shirt maker, or a Coke employee, or a hotel owner, can do better off the Olympics than an athlete who has trained for years at great personal cost. Or a politician, who shows up the day of an event.
Don't trash the athletes. They are one part of a big business, and with very few exceptions they are not the ones who make the money.
Taxpayers may indeed decide to not fund Olympic or other elite sports. That 's a good idea. Olympic sports can be like hockey , or boxing, or surfing - private businesses. The business would decide what people will pay to see, develop venues, competitions, and spinoff businesses. Athletes would either develop careers, or move on to something else. If Canada wanted to do flag-waving during the Olympics, the government could buy ad time.
I'm not trashing the athletes.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, I've defended them in the past.
I'm trashing the devolution of what was once something that celebrated sport into what now celebrates private industry.
I certainly agree that our federal/provincial/municipal governments should spend far, far less on encouraging elite competitive sport and far, far more on measures to encourage ordinary people to make physical activity part of their daily lives.
ReplyDeleteWe need to learn not to be spectators of other people doing amazing-looking things (which may not even be good for their longterm health) but instead learn to bike to work, play in community sports leagues, walk to the library, enjoy a game of tennis, and for the competitive among us, run in local 10Ks or swim in local swim meets. This things are not equally accessible to all Canadians, especially lower-income Canadians. Are there swimming pools with reasonable hours in all neighbourhoods? Is there an extensive network of bike paths and safe places to walk? How much does it cost to enrol in a team sport? Once we've finally made these things accessible to all, we can worry about our performance at the Olympics.
I see the direct benefit of national level funding in Victoria every year, when several youth rowers - most of whom have had the opportunity to row directly beside Olympic medallists - receive scholarships for their efforts, or attend local post-secondary at UVic or UBC. Many of these teens will stop rowing after after school, and become social workers, doctors, teachers, or nurses. If we're looking for quantifiable evidence of the benefit of spending, the girl who receives a rowing scholarship to the US, becomes a doctor, and returns to Canada to practice after is in my opinion, a very positive result.
ReplyDeleteI met a former rower who encouraged me to get (back) into the sport. Two years later, I've shed 100lbs of fat and am training for an Ironman triathlon. A few months after I started my training, a co-worker (in his early 20's and over 300lbs at the time) took up the sport as well. A year later, he's part of a community cycling group which is coached/led by current and former elite athletes, has lost a significant amount of weight, and in the long run will be quite a bit less of a burden on our federal health system than he would have otherwise.
So in response to the question you pose, yes, there is a very direct benefit which I have seen, benefitted from myself, and shared with others.
I think we spend far more tax dollars on far more foolish things than the Olympics.
ReplyDeleteA better question might be: should taxpayers -- everywhere --expect our Olympic organizations to follow a set of criteria for sponsorship that reflect the documented goals of the Games?
The athletes are role models, mostly positive ones. Maybe the funding sponsorship should be held to the same standard.
While millions are spent on sport-for-one, whole communities go without fitness and leisure facilities which = huge health benefits.
ReplyDeleteIn my city, recently, in a neighbourhood that is considered "ghetto" and rife with youth crime and school drop-outs, prostitution and drug dealing, native youth and immigrant of colour, the hundreds of thousands in the north east have had a quonset hut for a leisure centre, built to serve a fraction of that population: outdated, broken-down, and expensive, while in an area of city which is single family homes, vacation homes and frequent ski trips et al, a huge multi-milliion dollar facility was built before much of the area was developed, even before most of the schools were in.
I am not interested in the least sponsoring with my taxes, hearing about or boostering for this corrupt system which is the antithesis to health. It's all about the ONE, greed, and pouring money into hero worship.
I don't give a fig for the Olympic athletes or the super-athlete ideology. These people are the privileged elite, in every way.
Take the money away from this massively warped way of thinking about fitness, and pour it into the kids to teach them everyday fitness leading to health.