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Pyeongchang 2018: Your verdict


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The Koreans put on a good show. My coverage was spotty but I did manage to catch ice hockey and managed to watch the U.S. men's curling team pull what is IMO the upset of the tournament with the gold medal win over Sweden. 

In terms of legacy, this isn't going to help the IOC and it's likely within a few months we're are going to start seeing stories in the media about the decay and idleness of the venues, and it's just in time for the 2026 race . . . enough time to turn public opinion against prospective bids in Calgary and Sion.

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4 hours ago, stryker said:

it's likely within a few months we're are going to start seeing stories in the media about the decay and idleness of the venues

If the idle venues are the indoor ones at Gangneung, that will indeed be a problem- but not many people expect winter snow in Korea in August.

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PC 2018 WoG has been well organized by Korea, I had a good surprise with Freestyle tracks that were good, with a good shaping. 

But it wasn't real WoG like we can expect : 

There were many problems like the lack of popular fervor and supporters, many seats in outside competitions were empty ,It was sad games without emotions. Usually WoG are a big party, not this time, we didn't see crazy supporters excepted North Korean Cheerleaders. In Biathlon, Nordic Ski, Alpin Ski and even in Freestyle ski the atmosphere was flavorless...Many Athletes criticized this point. I don't understand why IOC chose went to Korea... New Horizon was more an advertising slogan than a reality, there aren't New horizon for winter sports in Korea. 

This games were too artificial, we lost the village or Alpin atmosphere, PC doesn't have real mountains or real ski resorts, the main part of venues has been build only for this WoG and they will never be used in the future. Korea will have many White Elephant in the poorest Korean region... For local population it will be a very bad legacy. But IOC is happy, their members don't care about local population and the legacy. 

Moreover the environment was another big issue for PC :  they destroyed a national forest for a boring Alpin track, this track was too easy and very far from the international standard. Moreover Korean used 98% of fake snow, in 2018 it's a real shame for IOC to accept this kind of bid without respect for environment, with the lack of water and the global warming, it's a really bad signal for the young generation and the futur bids... This is not going to improve the image that Europeans have about WoG. 

Korea had to pay bribes to host this WoG, it was another scandal... Like Russia and many other host before... But it's not reason to accept this point. 

With Sotchi, PC and Beijing, I thing we lost definitively the original spirit of WoG, and it's the main reason why IOC won't have bids for 2026 from Europe, public opinion is sick with this king of WoG, 100% artificial without respect for Athletes, environment or traditional winter countries. 

I think it's the moment for another organization than IOC to purpose a major big winter sport events to compete WoG eject them from Winter sports. 

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On 3/1/2018 at 11:20 AM, stryker said:

The Koreans put on a good show. My coverage was spotty but I did manage to catch ice hockey and managed to watch the U.S. men's curling team pull what is IMO the upset of the tournament with the gold medal win over Sweden. 

In terms of legacy, this isn't going to help the IOC and it's likely within a few months we're are going to start seeing stories in the media about the decay and idleness of the venues, and it's just in time for the 2026 race . . . enough time to turn public opinion against prospective bids in Calgary and Sion.

Ski jumping stadium - opened in 2008, used as a football stadium much of the year.

Cross-country and biathlon - originally built more than 20 years ago, used as golf courses outside of the winter.

Sliding venue - yea, what else would that be used for.

Main stadium - temporary venue, will be demolished.

Could do a lot worse than that.  There are venues here that weren't custom-built for the Olympics and had events before PyeongChang was awarded the games.  How much have the venues in Whistler been used since 2010?  Like JMark noted, the coastal venues are likely to be an issue.  I don't think these Olympics are a major red flag in that regard compared to some of what we've seen in the past.

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PC 2018 cost 14 billions instead of 6,4 billions, one more time Olympic Games are a fail about this point, one more time local population will pay, one more time IOC don't care... It's the reason why public opinion is against WoG in Europa. It will be the same for Beijing, the WoG as the IOC wants aren't profitable. 

 

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It is perfectly dishonest to include in the cost of the Olympics the cost of permanent and useful infrastructure such as the high speed railway line between Wonju and Gangneung.

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1 hour ago, Tulsa said:

PC 2018 cost 14 billions instead of 6,4 billions, one more time Olympic Games are a fail about this point, one more time local population will pay, one more time IOC don't care... It's the reason why public opinion is against WoG in Europa. It will be the same for Beijing, the WoG as the IOC wants aren't profitable. 

 

This is completely unfair. If that rail lines becomes vital in developing the region, and not even in the tourist sense, the Olympics will have much larger of an impact than you could conclude just by looking at numbers. Take Barcelona for example. Didn't turn over nearly as much money as LA or Seoul, but with the creation of new beaches, improved highways, a redeveloped port and downtown, and several new hotel rooms, plus the airport improvements, Barcelona 1992 helped paved the way for the city to grow into both a tourist and business hub, while bettering the lives of the people who live there. So who was more  more "successful", LA or Barcelona?

 

Both were in their own regard. If Pyeongchang creates a new legacy of its own with its new infrastructure improvements, who are you to say Pyeongchang was unsuccessful?

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I may not have an opinion that will matter much to far more knowledgable members who post here.  What I saw was NBC's US perspective and that has so often disappointed me.  I do not believe they cover the games well and, in the past, have needed reminders that other nations actually do send athletes to compete and the games are not all about "medal counts" and personal back stories about US athletes who may or may not deserve some sort of spotlight.  Nevertheless, from the many hours I watched, I had the impression that the South Koreans built magnificent venues in a remarkably beautiful area--an area that is truly a home for winter sports because the climate supports such competitions.  It was, in many ways, a winter wonder land unlike Sochi, for example, where Alpine events often ran on man-made snow in spring like temperatures.  In addition to th beautiful and flawless venues, the games seemed to operate with virtually no significant problems, glitches or scandals.  The focus was on competition because there were no   silly or foolish distractions.  It appeared that South Korea worked over time to make athletes and visitors feel welcome and I heard this from many athletes as they were interviewed.  In short, South Korea hosted a damn near flawless Winter games and left a positive legacy.  I do hope their beautiful venues will serve as a training center for future Olympians much like the well maintained and actively used facilities at Lake Placid and Salt Lake.  I am relocating closer to the Canadian border in Upstate New York and with a bit of good fortune will be able to see televised Olympic coverage provided by CBC as well as NBC in the future.  Anything that helps to provide a counter balance to NBC's too often jingoistic coverage will be welcome.

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7 hours ago, Trylon said:

 am relocating closer to the Canadian border in Upstate New York and with a bit of good fortune will be able to see televised Olympic coverage provided by CBC as well as NBC in the future.  Anything that helps to provide a counter balance to NBC's too often jingoistic coverage will be welcome.

nbc deserves  ALL the criticism they get......they are dinosaur excrement. However, CBC is the same or even worse in terms of droning on incessantly about obscure uninteresting 100th ranked Canadian athletes. And in term of medal obsession SCBC actually had some awful sponsor (Nabisco i think) "medal tally" commercials that constantly ran with updated medal count........it was like a low class power point stick figure cartoon with canned crowd cheering or some such......very low class.

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11 hours ago, Trylon said:

I may not have an opinion that will matter much to far more knowledgable members who post here.  What I saw was NBC's US perspective and that has so often disappointed me.  I do not believe they cover the games well and, in the past, have needed reminders that other nations actually do send athletes to compete and the games are not all about "medal counts" and personal back stories about US athletes who may or may not deserve some sort of spotlight.  Nevertheless, from the many hours I watched, I had the impression that the South Koreans built magnificent venues in a remarkably beautiful area--an area that is truly a home for winter sports because the climate supports such competitions.  It was, in many ways, a winter wonder land unlike Sochi, for example, where Alpine events often ran on man-made snow in spring like temperatures.  In addition to th beautiful and flawless venues, the games seemed to operate with virtually no significant problems, glitches or scandals.  The focus was on competition because there were no   silly or foolish distractions.  It appeared that South Korea worked over time to make athletes and visitors feel welcome and I heard this from many athletes as they were interviewed.  In short, South Korea hosted a damn near flawless Winter games and left a positive legacy.  I do hope their beautiful venues will serve as a training center for future Olympians much like the well maintained and actively used facilities at Lake Placid and Salt Lake.  I am relocating closer to the Canadian border in Upstate New York and with a bit of good fortune will be able to see televised Olympic coverage provided by CBC as well as NBC in the future.  Anything that helps to provide a counter balance to NBC's too often jingoistic coverage will be welcome.

If you think NBC is jingoistic, wait until you see CBC.  They may provide more straight-forward and honest coverage, but if there's a Canadian involved, you can be sure they'll remind you he or she is competing, whether it's 1st place or 50th.  And if there's any sort of controversy involving a Canadian athlete (I saw this with my own eyes and ears in 1998 and 2002), be prepared for them to blow it out or proportion and lose any semblance of objectivity.  Ross Rebagliati getting stripped of gold?  Sale and Pelletier getting screwed by the judges?  If that happens here, it's a story, but NBC wouldn't take it so personally.  CBC did.

3 hours ago, paul said:

nbc deserves  ALL the criticism they get......they are dinosaur excrement. However, CBC is the same or even worse in terms of droning on incessantly about obscure uninteresting 100th ranked Canadian athletes. And in term of medal obsession SCBC actually had some awful sponsor (Nabisco i think) "medal tally" commercials that constantly ran with updated medal count........it was like a low class power point stick figure cartoon with canned crowd cheering or some such......very low class.

No, NBC does not deserve *all* of the criticism because some of it is pure bullshit.  Things like bad commentators and tape delays I get.  But I learned something with these Olympics.  There are those who seek out when and where the coverage is (broadcast, cable, streaming, whenever it's on) and are largely content with that.  Then there are those - usually cord-cutters - who expect the Olympics to be placed in a nice neat little package in front of them and lash out when it's presently differently than they would like to see.  And get upset that the entire thing isn't for free.  The #nbcfail tweets were a lot less this time around than last time, mostly because of the live primetime coverage, no more west coast delays, lots of cable coverage, and because just a tweaked approach to the games.  Yea, they're over-hyping a few athletes (check the ratings for last week's golf telecasts with Tiger Woods in the field to see how that works for them), but this is the Olympics with a nightly audience of 20 million people.  It's impossible to make everyone happy.

And yes FYI, I would have responded to these even without my favorite FYI-ism, the unnamed mention of another poster. :D

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3 hours ago, FYI said:

The L.A. bolsters here will always say that the ‘84 Summer Games were the most “successful” ever. ^_^

They were, in terms of profit returns. Barcelona 1992 had a different type of success than LA 1984. Goes back to my point that each Olympic legacy is different, and there shouldn't be one example of what a "successful" Olympic host was. It comes in different forms

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36 minutes ago, anthonyliberatori said:

Goes back to my point that each Olympic legacy is different, and there shouldn't be one example of what a "successful" Olympic host was. It comes in different forms

Exactly - I was being facetious, since you posed the question to tulsa. If you were here when the 2024 campaign was in full swing, you would’ve seen for yourself all the L.A. boosters touting that bcuz L.A. ‘84 was so “successful” & brought the Olympics “back to life” that it should automatically get the nod over Paris for that alone.

But yes, each Games is different (just like every bid race is as well) to judge the level of relative & subjective success over another. Paris 2024 will be successful in it’s own way, as L.A. 2028 will be successful in their own. Although “profit returns” won’t be it this next time around.

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12 minutes ago, FYI said:

Exactly - I was being facetious, since you posed the question to tulsa. If you were here when the 2024 campaign was in full swing, you would’ve seen for yourself all the L.A. boosters touting that bcuz L.A. ‘84 was so “successful” & brought the Olympics “back to life” that it should automatically get the nod over Paris for that alone.

But yes, each Games is different (just like every bid race is as well) to judge the level of relative & subjective success over another. Paris 2024 will be successful in it’s own way, as L.A. 2028 will be successful in their own. Although “profit returns” won’t be it this next time around.

I was around for that, I remember being somewhat indecisive. My heart wanted Rome, my wanderlust wanted Paris, but my inner-economist wanted LA. I was very happy with the dual-allocation, though, I knew it would be between Paris and LA, and I just couldn't think of which one would lose to the other. Thankfully, neither did.

 

Just curious, what do you think LA's 2028 legacy will be 10 years out?

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On 3/16/2018 at 3:55 PM, anthonyliberatori said:

Just curious, what do you think LA's 2028 legacy will be 10 years out?

.....probably the ioc is more dependent on LA to provide them with a legacy narrative to cover their history of misguided projects that damaged people and economies in favor of political and institutional corruption.

18 hours ago, krow said:

swallowed into the sea by global warming.

......a good way to solve our homeless, illegal, and liberal crisis....I'm 100% sure Maxine Waters can't swim.

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the homeless are not a race

illegals are  many races

liberals come in colors......a virtual brainwashed rainbow

Maxine Waters is black......so is my dad......so what.....difference is he's the least racist person i know.....and he can swim

Edited by paul
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