September 15, 2004
 

As if to prove my point made a month or so ago, Greece's Prime Minister revealed that the Athens Olympics punched a huge hole in the budget, resulting in a deficit of 5.3%.

I repeat - the Olympics are not for struggling economies. They just cannot afford the strain organizing the Olympics places on their systems and infrastructure. The argument that hosting the Olympics will bring in superb infrastructure is a flawed one. Governments ought to be worried about protecting their people, ensuring a proper social security network [if there is none] and encouraging infrastructure development by private participants. There should be no link between hosting any event - Olympics/Commonwealth Games/Asian Games etc. and infrastructure improvement. Improvements to roads, railways & air networks as well as meeting the needs of the people can and should happen regardless of whether the exigency situation of an Olympics exists or not.

India should hence forget about hosting the Olympics in 2016 or 2020. Bagging the Commonwealth Games for 2010 was bad enough.

Labels: olympics