to think we should cancel the Olympics?

[StuckInTheMiddleWithYou]

As opposed to various benefits?

What's more important? People in lycra running in circles or keeping people out of poverty?

no one really watches Olympic sports.

every summer there are plenty of athletics, cycling, gymnastics, canoeing, sailing etc etc events - all watched by a few hundred or occasionally a few thousand people. These sports are not popular.

I always ask Olympic enthusiasts to name three medal winners - from any any country at all - from the last olympics (Beijing). Very few people can name more than one (always the same one as well).

The olympics are a con, IMO

well if it has to be about medals... Ben Ainslie, Chris Hoy, Rebecca Romero, Victoria Pendleton...

it's more like drama IMO

i couldn't tell you about many of the last lot of BAFTAs either (and certainly not the ones from four years ago) but there are drama and music performances in my mind that will live there for ever, same for the Olympics. I don't watch the sports that are usually on the telly; I watch the Olympics because all those minor sports on their own do not cause me to go and watch them for a whole day, but all those sports together are brilliant, it is a festival.

yes but however popular the Olympics are with some people, we just can't afford them! Especially when pensioners, people on benefits, workers and everyone else is going to suffer so badly in the budget today.

Most of the events won't actually be held in the Olympic Park though - that's really just for athletics and swimming.

The Games will use a mixture of new venues along with existing and historic facilities around the city.

Birmingham, for all in its favour for an Olympic bid (e.g. NEC next to international airport and London linked rail, a small but now quite pleasant city centre...), is not considered a world-class city by the international community. Head out in any direction 10 minutes from the city centre and you're into a wilderness of ring roads and decaying 60's architecture. There are no internationally regarded hotels or restaurants even.

At the time of Manchester's first bid, it didn't even have a single five star hotel. May seem trivial but it's important that the hosting city is attractive to the IoC and able to deliver to a standard expected by international tourists.

Anyway, the only Alpha world cities are London and New York. The 2008 roster of Alpha, Beta and Gamma world cities is comprehensive but Manchester and Birmingham are right at the bottom of this huge list. For that reason it's going to be very difficult for anywhere but London to be taken seriously for an Olympic bid.

Yes but edam we've paid for most of the Olympics already. To cancel it now would mean we waste all the money already spent without getting the benefit of the financial and economic boost that hosting the Games will bring.

£27m has been cut from the public spending on the Olympics already (which is incidentally only 60% of the total cost, the rest is funded by private companies).

Perhaps in 2005 if the Labour government had a crystal ball and could have predicted the financial meltdown that ensued, we wouldn't have bid. But we did, and we won, and we should just get on with delivering the Games as best we can and enjoying it. It's a privilege, after all.

your are right, crazycatlady, we can't cancel it now. But it's not too late to make savings, and I hope we will see some announced this afternoon.

George announced £27m cut from the Olympic budget in his first round of cuts. He may well announce more I guess.

Will be watching at 12.30 with interest! (but more so for tax and benefit changes it must be said...)

Not bothered about the Olympics, but whoever mentioned Eurovision. - YABVVVU. I'd rather sell the Royal Family then stop paying for Eurovision. foolish grin

Now the Royal Family...there's a burden on the public purse, wonder what cuts George will have in store for them today? .

If we cancelled it now, we wouldn't have to spend billions more. Just because we've started, doesn't mean we have to finish when we are skint. £25m is spare change in the context of the overall budget. And history shows most Olympics cost far more than they bring in.

When the Olympics go ahead, they will earn enough (probably) to pay for all the investment made. If they don't go ahead, not a penny will be made back on what's already been spent.

i don't think the Olympics even pretend to pay for the investment that the host country puts in. when they talk about the olympics making money they mean whether the revenues exceed the running costs.

if the olympics were profitable they wouldn't need govt assistance / involvement.

Profitable sports - football, grand prix, golf, cricket arrange their own competitions without state aid. Unpopular sports have to appeal to the national prestige and govt assistance.

Yes I'm not sure how it works in terms of the proportion of revenue generated going back into public funds?

I thought this was interesting reading though on the profit point:

Olympic Games Profits Since 1984

1984: Los Angeles Olympic Games made profits of US $250 million.

1988: Seoul Olympic Games made profits of US $300 million, a record high for a government-run Olympiad.

1992: Barcelona Olympic Games made profits of US $5 million.

1996: Atlanta Olympic Games made profits of US $10 million.

2000: Sydney Olympic Games Organizing Committee generated an income of US $1.756 billion.

2004: Athens Olympic Games ended in a loss.

(China Today November 5, 2004)

Why is it that, in this country, we always consider sporting events more important than things like education? Spending this amount of money on something when we have thousands of schools without Depute Head Teachers and resources for struggling children is disgusting.

Bit late to cancel now innit? Now that would be a waste of money.

I think the problem is, to cancel at this stage would be akin to putting up a large flag saying "Country about to go bust. Take your investments and run for your lives."

The markets are all about confidence and projection and if the government came out and said "we're so fucked we'll have to take abject international humiliation because we're in desperate financial straits" then we'd be in a worse state than the eurozone pretty quickly, as the investors ran like fury for the exits because they'll assume the books are so bad there is an imminent collapse coming.

Tis an auld thread. But Belgarion as you've revived it, I disagree. I really don't think this country considers sporting events more important than education.

And yes, it's a bit late to cancel now!

The Olympics were previously a source of profit for the host country, but that has changed with all of the added requirements over the years. I know I've read a few articles on the subject, I'll see if I can dredge them up. Something about different sports requiring new sites built from scratch to accomodate the Olympic standard (the only example off the top of my head is a pool, not every pool is Olympic standard length, and of course holding a swimming event for the Olympics means you'll need x number of pools/space available at the same time. The average city doesn't have those facilities so will promise to build one. That's just an example, and at least pools can be put to use by the public. Velodromes are only used by a very small number of people, cyclists training competitively, so having one built to Olympic standard doesn't really benefit the average taxpayer in an area.)

Am babbling. It would be silly to stop the games now, as most of that money has already been spent. It's finally time to get some return from it. The time to stop it would have been when they won the bid in the first place. YABU.