To think Rio has been shocking

[pleasemothermay1]

There is hardly any one in the seats even the foot ball and brizallians love foot ball

The pools are green no one can say why I hear a rugby athlete got injured they got lost on route to the hospital in abulance 😳

There are issues with transport

The ioc have said this has been one of the most diffcult games in a long time

Even the opening was very poor I no they didn't have much money so why not just do a carnival instead they tried to copy ours though the ages sort of thing but not very well play to your strengths I think some samba and carival theam would have been awesome.

Also some govermnet staff have not been paid I fear that it's unlikely the para games will be much better
Contrast to London were there wasn't a ticket going begging even for the para games

I think it's all well and good allowing emerging countries to have this but they must be able to afford it and also show that the tickets will be pitched at a price of the avarge wage

amd also that the cost of the games is not at the expense of paying your govermnet staff there will be no legacy at least we have had the good sense to sell some of our ventunes I don't think there is any vunue sitting empty

Tinkly, was it G4 or the Olympic organisers who didn't want to pay your DS and the others who had been offered jobs?
I remember G4 giving up as they couldn't cope - really bad news for your ds and all the others who had jobs lined up.

Dapple, the job was arranged through G4. Bit of a shambles really.

The environmental damage by Sochi was shocking. :( Russia promised all this stuff about environmental protection which didn't happen. And that's leaving aside what the keyhole doping scandal means!!

LA is trying to bid for 2024.

I'm actually chuckling now at OP's inability to use capital letters, properly constructed sentences or punctuation: and don't get me started on the absence of full stops

Really?

Ok no one else has said it so I guess I'm going to be the pedant. OP please don't use "no" when you mean "know"!!!

And again, really?

Yes, really!

It's quite bad form to criticise a poster's grammar or punctuation.

Meh, I found OP's use of the term "emerging countries" a bit more distasteful but different strokes for different folks...

There are several reasons for the low turnout, the economy is just part of it, but what is not being reported widely in the mainstream press very much is that the refusal to buy tickets is part of a protest towards the Brazilian government and the Rio regional government in particular (according to my native Rio friend).

Then there's the most basic fact of all which should have occurred to the IOC when Rio was bidding for the games - the fact that the vast majority of Brazilians have no experience or interest in many of the Olympic sports, soccer is the one and only big sport in Brazil. Trying to get Brazilians excited (and willing to pay for tickets) about say, trap shooting or dressage, even athletics was always going to be an uphill struggle. I think the only reason the swimming events look somewhat full is because it's a smaller seating venue that's filled with more supporters from foreign teams. I thought the attendance would be a big issue when even the beach volleyball events looked empty.

I think the Olympics should be set permanently in Greece (although that's problematic due to their economic situation). No city has ever made a profit or broken even on this massively expensive event before or since Los Angeles in 1894 and there are unique reasons for that. Due to that fact that it was clear many cities were going to be paying for decades to finally clear the expense of hosting the Olympics (Montreal 1976 - the Mayor promised they would break even, it took 30 years for the city to pay it off) every city dropped out of bidding for the 1984 Olympics, just leaving Los Angeles. Since they were the only bidders, LA had massive negotiating power and played hardball. The IOC which usually milks the event to make millions had to agree to give up many revenue streams and were shut out of broadcasting rights, so the IOC really didn't make much at all, Los Angeles was therefore able to turn a profit on their Olympics. Unfortunately LA did such a glorious job of making teh Olympics look spectacular that other cities wanted to bid again, especially as it was widely publicized that LA made a profit - the IOC never gave up revenue rights like that again so no host city since has made it profitable.

Sorry for the lecture, I have an acquaintance who is involved with the next LA OLympic bid and he explained the whole history to me. Fascinating to me.

Well we're enjoying it. The backdrop is stunning and the DC are loving watching several sports other than football for once! Empty seats haven't even registered!

I'm in the US right now, every day is another headline about sexist twats on the commentary here. NBC are getting a hammering. This list was from the first 2 days...

m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_57a88bfce4b0c94bd3c9fb86

At least when the Olympics moves around there is a distant hope that ordinary people may get a chance to attend. I bet there are many thousands of "nearly" locals who scrapped together the money to travel to London, Sydney, Beijing or Rio who would not even bother thinking about attending yet another Olympics in Greece (if it was based there permanently) if it meant crossing continents to get there.

I love the fact that it moves so more people stand a chance to see it. It will always vary though and there will always be issues.

I really enjoyed the opening ceremony. It wasn't as lavish as London but it was enjoyable. There's so much more to Brazil than Carnival and Samba.
Also we were in Rio in January, so much improvements have been made. We lived in Rio about 10 years ago and some of the worst areas have been regenerated. The metro has been expanded. It has come on so much.
As for the ambulance getting lost. The drivers are probably not from Rio, it is probably an ambulance that was bought in from somewhere else. During London 2012 a police van from Dorset, on it's way to a 999 call stopped and asked me for directions. I remember thinking "what a mess".

Actually, I don't like the eco - green - sustainability theme when it's the Brazilians who are cutting down the rainforests. yes local brazilians are paid to illegally cut the rainforest, the final destination and the people pulling the strings are 9 times out of 10, European. Policing the Amazon is very difficult and expensive. Brazil needs to educate the world and should get much more help in this. So, I for one, was pleased to see this mentioned. I would be shocked if it wasn't actually because the Brazilian school curriculum focuses heavily on the environment.

It's a shame Brazil is getting so much criticism on mumsnet. It would be one thing if it was from people in Brazil, people with a lot of experience or Brazilians. But it seems to come from people whose knowledge of Brazil would fit on a pinhead, they blow their ignorance wide open.
Either enjoy it or don't but don't pretend to know about things you clearly don't, because it's starting to make mumsnet read like a a bunch of American rednecks discussing the georgraphy of Eastern Europe.

poster Tinkly

You find some posters like this they play the man not the ball

They don't really have anything to add can't really counter your agruments and resort to name calling

So Somone try's to have a debate
They can't counter
So they say well your shit at spelling so na na ner na na

it usually says more about them than the person they are trying to be little and make feel uneducated

Standing ovation for dizzy

*You find some posters like this they play the man not the ball"

?!?!

Well said dizzy

A knowledgeable response to a pretty ill informed OP.

So they say well your shit at spelling so na na ner na na

That's mature. Admittedly your spelling does reflect the rest of your ill-informed opinions OP. Read dizzy's post and try to be a little less ignorant next time.

The empty stadiums are an embarrassment and clearly the ticket prices are too high. In London people were prepared to pay for sports they knew very little about such as handball and dressage but Brazilians just won't do this and have a different attitude to sport they are not familiar with.

I have been to Rio recently and we were shocked at the public transport system and I have heard it is not good enough so people just cannot get around the city in huge numbers so they are not bothering.

Moving the Olympics around does work and it regenerates areas of cities. London did this very successfully. We also have excellent transport in comparison to Rio.

We had a few unused VIP and corporate seats and, I recall very clearly, Seb Coe stepped in and the tickets came back into the market via the official web site. I know they did because I bought them. We had virtually no empty seats. China did and this was definitely not repeated in London.

Lastly, in economic terms, Brasil is classed an emerging nation. It is not disrespectful.

The Nadal tennis match looks pretty full to me....

Moving the Olympics around does work and it regenerates areas of cities. London did this very successfully

I don't know about that, Stratford is still a shithole, albeit a pricier shithole than 4 years ago!

Sorry Stratford may not be Mayfair but it certainly isn't a 'shithole'. I don't live there but I can't stand when people are so rude about other people's home towns.

It is still deprived in some areas but it has improved substantially. The Olympics did a lot for East London.