 "Photo: Illustration by Trevor Brown | The Spectator")
During the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Winter Olympic Games, champion speed skater Catriona Le May Doan was left standing with nothing to light when a pillar failed to lift one of the Olympic flames.
Perhaps that scene is a fitting symbol of recent Olympics that increasingly neglect the most important flame behind it all: the people.
Fifty percent of British Columbia residents think the Games are positive and 69 percent are upset about how much is being spent. Our Vancouver neighbors are glum about their Olympic Games for good reason. Cost overruns and sponsors backing out have brought the Games’ cost to the Canadian public to $6 billion.
If the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili and the absence of snow weren’t enough to cast a pall over Vancouver, there’s more.
Few ordinary people will be able to watch the Games live on TV or in person. As The Seattle Times reported in its series, “Freezing out the fans,” sponsors, media and VIPs get the majority of seats at events and lodge in “the 20,000 most desirable rooms.” Cost markups by companies with near-monopolies on ticket and lodging packages—which topped out at $17,000 per person for five nights—made the Games inaccessible to all but the wealthy. Students who thought of a trip to Canada for a rare experience quickly found the cost and logistics to be too much of a hassle.
Canada’s CBC lost its Olympics coverage contract, leaving most U.S. residents with one option for TV viewing: tape-delayed coverage from NBC, which is inconveniently suffering from frequent loss of audio. Late-night delayed coverage is inaccessible to many and—in this world of new media—is irrelevant when everything from Twitter to newspaper Web sites have comprehensive results before the event makes it on the air.
Top that all off with the Olympic flame initially burning behind an obtrusive chain-link fence, Olympics artists being prohibited from negative remarks about the Games or sponsors, and standing-room-only tickets being sold on top of snow that doesn’t exist—among other serious flaws—and the Games seem hardly a celebration of and for the people at all.
Suddenly, Olympics protestors don’t seem so crazy. In fact, maybe it’s time the International Olympic Committee hears from more people worldwide about what needs to be done better. The same is true for NBC.
Reach the editorial board at opinion@su-spectator.com.
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