Winter Olympics in Italy: gliding along?
The 25th Winter Olympics kick off in Italy today. For the first time in Olympic history, two cities, Milan and the winter resort of Cortina d'Ampezzo, will jointly host the games. Before all the attention turns to games and medals, the media discuss the event from an economic - and environmental - perspective.
Taxpayers lumped with the costs
Business newspaper Les Echos examines the Olympics from an economic perspective:
“Revenue from ticket sales, marketing partnerships, TV rights and contributions from the International Olympic Committee never cover the total cost. Over time, these events have become 'nation branding' operations. Hosting a major event has helped to transform the image of countries on the global stage, including Beijing during the 2008 Olympics and Qatar during the 2022 World Cup. But for countries that no longer have anything to prove, is it still worthwhile to invest in such events? Although costs can be reduced by using existing infrastructure, in the end it is always the taxpayer who foots the bill.”
Spotlight on climate change
Cortina d'Ampezzo hosted the Olympic Games seventy years ago, but winters like it had back then are a thing of the past, Seznam Zprávy notes:
“Cortina now has 41 fewer days of frost per year than it did in 1956. Or, to put it more succinctly, one and a half months of winter have disappeared. ... If the current climate trends continue, the number of locations suitable for the Winter Olympics will drop from 93 to 52 by 2050. The criterion for this analysis is a minimum of 30 centimetres of snow. ... Global warming is no longer an abstract concept or just a topic for activists. In Cortina we are experiencing it first-hand, in the spotlight of the Olympic Games.”
A challenge for the Olympic spirit
La Tribune de Genève reflects on the pros and cons of decentralising the Games:
“This must definitely be seen as progress: towards sustainability in terms of infrastructure, but also towards controlled expenditures following the alarming cost explosion in the 21st century. ... One significant unknown remains: will the Olympic enthusiasm, that deep communion that once carried the host city to euphoric heights, really be catch on if the Games are so geographically scattered? ... The first consequence: in Cortina, the temporary Olympic village was built on a piece of wasteland - like a campsite. And there you have it, the Olympic spirit.”