Comments on: Why do I hate the Olympics?

By: gordon

gordon — Mon, 13 Aug 2012 15:25:50 +0000

And I think those of you who have messaged here to say the Olympics are justified are missing the point. First, the Olympics is no longer a sporting contest. That died long, long ago. The entire basis of the Olympics is to make money for sponsors etc. That’s why governments who tell you that the host country will make massive amounts of money, over and above the grossly disgusting costs of hosting this event (lets not call it a sporting contest) are misleading the public in the extreme. The purpose of the games used to be amateur sporting contest. Now we have money paid to so called sports people to appear. It may be outright payment or a tenuous appearance of expenses to appear; its irrelevant. The outrageous waste of tax payers money when the country is in dire state shows how much politicians could not care one iota about the ordinary citizens plight. If they did, this kind of profligate squandering of public money would never take place. It’s about time politicians realised they cannot be all things to all men and try and administer this country in the fashion best placed to make it succeed. When this worthless event is long gone, we as tax payers will still be paying money for its two weeks of sheer, unmitigated folly. It’s up to you as tax payers, you can either realise what the word priority means or allow these administrators to dig your country into further ruin. As for the non entity that is Sebastian Coe, let’s not even talk about this man who is an establishment lacky.

By: uglyfatbloke

uglyfatbloke — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 17:59:43 +0000

So the Olympics are jolly nice for wealthy pampered athletes and their coaches/managers/agents etc…and they are doubtless very nice for the most heavily subsidised part of the country (London), but what do the rest of us (the overwhelming majority as it happens) get out of it? Oh…we get to pay for it ..that’s nice.

By: Hueij

Hueij — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 20:45:38 +0000

You may be right about about all the Olympics being a lot of bull, but the opening ceremony was totally worth it. One thing you Brits do right: not being afraid of making fun of yourselves, not taking yourselves too serious. Well done.

By: Tim

Tim — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 17:49:09 +0000

Thoroughly agree. Sickening corporate greed enshrined in law (olympic and paralympic games act 2006).
The bits of the opening ceremony I saw certainly didn’t warrant being called “multi-cultural crap” which is how one tory MP described it on twitter. The same tory MP that got into bother for attending a Nazi themed stag party, funnily enough…

By: Bruce

Bruce — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:49:56 +0000

Yes, Bill. I haven’t seen the opening ceremony yet but plan to watch it on iPlayer.

By: Bill Lees

Bill Lees — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 11:35:34 +0000

Agree with your distaste for the grim corporate ownership of the whole thing. The sport is mildly distracting, but will get better once the track and field athletics gets started.

However, the opening ceremony by Danny Boyle – a cultural artefact that hit several nails squarely on the head – has been by far the most interesting and remarkable thing about it all thus far.