The Prague Post
December 1st, 2008
Endowment Fund     Business Listings ONLINE      Reservations      Classifieds    Subscriptions
Prague accomodation

Home » Archives » Opinion

Postview

Save the ski event, scrap the Olympics bid
Postview | Search restaurants | Archives

August 1st, 2007 issue

As the new public face of the planned 2009 Nordic World Ski Championships in Liberec, north Bohemia, Olympic cross-country ski champion Kateřina Neumannová represents a conundrum. The skier, a symbol of Czech achievement and success, was named president of the tainted event to get it back on track.

Workers are way behind in construction and other tasks, even though preparations for the 2.2 billion Kč ($107.4 million) event started in 2004. An estimated 1.5 billion Kč has already been spent on sports and accommodation facilities.
Even though the actual championship is still more than two years away, some buildings are supposed to be ready for World Cup races this winter. After ski officials admitted they may not be able to finish the work on time, other countries are already knocking at the door to see if they can help out.
At the same time, local officials have said they want to bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics. The country will certainly suffer a black eye in its Olympics bid if organizers can’t pull off the much smaller 2009 winter event.
So here’s a contrarian proposal to keep things on an even keel: Do everything possible to make sure the Liberec skiing event comes off smoothly, but scrap the official Olympics bid.
Why? Our top reason: Scores of previous Olympic cities have finished in the red, leaving taxpayers in places like Athens, Sydney and Atlanta with huge debts.
Athens taxpayers are expected to pay for the $12 billion 2004 Olympics through 2014, including the estimated record $1.5 billion spent on security. Chinese officials aren’t saying how much they expect to spend on the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing, but it’s expected to be even higher than Greece’s expense.
In the past 30 years or so, only the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics turned out to be an economic plus, generating $225 million in profit. Other games have seen venues built that went largely unused afterward and unhappy voters when the athletes had gone home.
Winning the Olympics may be a temporary coup. But the country needs to focus on more important long-term issues, such as the country’s transportation infrastructure.
Prague Mayor Pavel Bém said earlier this year that hosting an Olympics could cost up to 132 billion Kč in direct costs. As much as 600 billion Kč needs to be spent on corresponding infrastructure upgrades, according to a PricewaterhouseCoopers financial study of the bid process earlier this year.
City Hall spent approximately 15 million Kč for the study, which estimated taxpayers would be paying 50 billion Kč a year until 2020 for a successful Olympic bid. With the cost of living steadily rising as the country gets ready to adopt the euro, the last thing residents need is more debt.
It’s exciting to dream about the Olympics. But it’s even more exciting to think about the basic infrastructure upgrades needed to keep Prague a world-class city and the Czech Republic a world-class country that has drawn millions of tourists since the fall of communism.


Other articles in Opinion (1/08/2007):

Browse the Current Issue

If you enjoyed this article, why don't you subscribe to the print version!
We accept secure online transactions provided by PayPal and Moneybookers

Be the first to add a comment!


Full Name: *
City: *
E-mail: **
This comment can be published in the print version of The Prague Post
Enter the text on the right:
 visual captcha
Comment: *
* Required field. In order to be approved for display, comments must have a first and last name and a city.
** E-mails are required and will only be used for internal purposes.

Most visited in Business Listings

Hotel booking
The Prague Post Online contains a selection of articles that have been printed in
The Prague Post, a weekly newspaper published in the Czech Republic.
To subscribe to the print paper, click here.
Unauthorized reproduction is strictly prohibited.