Could these upcoming Olympic games possibly get any more screwed up? Let us start counting the ways it already is.
The Zika virus, a mosquito transmitted malady, is giving some athletes pause as to whether they should attend. The medical experts say it can cause birth defects in women who are pregnant. Well OK. Just how many pregnant women compete in Olympics anyway?
Some male athletes are shunning it because their significant others MAY become pregnant in the near future. Here's an idea. Leave them home. Here's a better idea. If they just have to come along, load them up daily with deep woods OFF to keep the skeeters away.
The Russians find themselves in a predicament. One federation determined some of their athletes were doping in contests past, with a little inside help. So what did the international authorities do? Ban all of them. That's not right. Then is was suggested those that underwent, and passed, vigorous pre-Olympic drug screening would be allowed to compete.
But only if they competed as "independents", not under the Russian flag. Yet another federation said Olympic rules only allow athletes to represent a country -- so maybe those that were squeaky clean all along won't be allowed after all. How incredibly Catch 22 bone-headed is that?
Flint, Michigan isn't the only one with a water problem. It seems Rio is awash with liquid pollution. Nothing like row-row-rowing Olympic boats through water chock full of human sewage and other nasty waste products.
Political unrest festers throughout Brazil. Who knows what sort of nonsense and/or mayhem some group might bring to one of the many venues throughout the Olympics?
Rio is already way behind schedule and over budget getting prepared to host an Olympics. The power brokers that picked it to stage such a massive spectacle -- that will be shown world-wide -- knew most of the above was likely to happen years ago.
So here's the question....... What sort of boneheads are in charge of these things?
And why -- tell me why -- do the Olympics have to be rotated to another country every four years?
It's a colossal waste of money. Billions of dollars are spent building the various required athletic venues and infrastructure that will be used once for a few weeks and then abandoned. Four years later, another city (usually on another continent) will have to do it all over again.
No doubt, politics are involved (aren't they always?). And hosting an Olympics comes with big-time bragging rights for the country that gets the nod.
Thing is, the taxpayers of that country are on the hook to pay for it all. Oftentimes, many of them are dirt poor to start with. The LAST thing they need is their government spending a ton of money they don't have putting on a one-time spectacle.
So here's an idea. The Olympics started in Greece. Put them back there -- permanently. Sure, Greece is broke, but have all the participating countries ante up one time to build a forever Olympic venue. It would be a huge jump start for their economy and we could dispense with all the political wrangling between nations having different philosophies that have long plagued what is supposed to be a pure contest between their best athletes.
Remember how the USA boycotted an Olympics in Moscow a few decades back because the politicians got in the way? The USSR would return the favor just four years later at an Olympiad held in the States. Meanwhile, athletes on both sides that had trained their whole lives to "go for the gold" wound up getting screwed. Through no fault of their own, they were never given the opportunity to compete at the highest level when they were at their peaks. It remains shameful to this day.
And now the boneheads are pressing on with what might very well turn out to be a debacle in Rio on a lot of different levels.
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