Yet Another Open Letter to Janet Evans About the 2024 (and 2028) Olympics

The latest news about where the next two - yes, the next two - summer Olympiads are being held requires me to once again write an open letter to Olympic swimming champion Janet Evans, in her capacity as Vice Chair of the Athletes Commission for Los Angeles' bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, as I now have reason to assume that she is in line for a major role in an official 2028 Olympic organizing committee.

Dear Janet:

Okay, I was wrong.  No sense in trying to approach this evasively, but yes, I'm coming out and saying it - I was wrong; Los Angeles is getting the Olympics.  But in 2028, not 2024, as the decision has been made to award the Summer Games after Tokyo to Paris, and then the Olympiad after that to LA.  But I still say that you and your fellow southern Californians have to wait four years longer than you wanted to in large part because no one wanted to take the chance of Donald Trump somehow getting re-elected President in 2020 (which could still happen) and officiating at the Olympics in the last year of a second term.  I guess Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti's efforts to honor the Paris Agreement - the agreement about climate change, which Trump won't support, not the one about the Olympics, which lets Paris go first - got LA some brownie points after all.

So, congratulations.  But bear in mind, Janet, that the bid committee you have proudly served will have to re-adjust the costs for Los Angeles to host the Games, because, as the New York Times reported, the original cost estimates were based on a seven-year, not an eleven-year, forecast, and that the time difference will render the cost projections becoming exponentially higher even by conservative budgeting.  Also, Rick Burton, a former chief marketing officer for the United States Olympic Committee, admitted that some LA sports venues may need to be upgraded with new technology, and that new venues may be needed altogether if more events are added.  And I think he said something about the possibility of a severe natural disaster like an earthquake, which is always impossible to predict.

But then, New York bid for the Olympics once, and Hurricane Sandy proved that natural disasters could affect a hypothetical Olympiad in the Northeast.  And you, Janet, like most southern Californians, know how to deal with an earthquake.  We in the Northeast still haven't completely recovered from Sandy.  I just hope you don't get another drought a decade and change from now.

But you guys did get a sweetheart deal for the Games, didn't you, Janet? The International Olympic Committee has promised to grant $1.8 billion - billion, with a b - to the Los Angeles organizing committee and $180 million in advance payments for the extra four years to prepare for 2028 - and even some money for youth sports programs now instead of later!  How did you swing that?  I'll bet you yourself had something to do with the negotiations, huh, Janet?  Because you can charm anyone with that chipper Southern California accent of yours!  You could sell ice cubes to an Eskimo!  (Not that you would sell ice cubes to Eskimos . . . )

What surprises me, apart from this deal that leaves Paris and Los Angeles both big winners, is that this wasn't - and isn't - going to be official before the meeting of the International Committee (IOC) on September 13, and IOC president Thomas Bach just couldn't wait that long to announce it.  When he stood with Eric Garcetti and Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo to make the announcement, he looked like he owned the earth.  Well, he does, at least the part of the earth where international sports are played.  And the Los Angeles City Council and the United States Olympic Committee still have to approve this, I understand, but, don't worry, Janet, I'm sure they will.

Having said all that, Janet, my criticisms about Los Angeles from my open letter to you in July 2016 still stand.  Los Angeles has already hosted the Games twice.  Also, it's more of a suburban-sprawl settlement than a city,  it doesn't have a vibrant cultural life, and it's too dependent on car travel (however, I award LA points for trying to expand its rapid transit service). It's nothing personal, it's just that I'm from the Northeast, and we roll differently out here.  Besides, as Will Smith once observed, you can't even get a decent Philly-style steak sandwich in LA.  And of course, I, like Will Smith, I'm sure, would have loved to see the Games in Philadelphia.  Oh, well, maybe Philly will get the Pan American Games one day.  And if the City of Brotherly Love ever does bid for the Pan Ams, I hope you will be supportive.  And I highly recommend that you visit Philadelphia one day if you haven't already.

I recommend Pat's Steaks for a good steak sandwich. Cheese is optional, but onions are de rigeur.  Just be careful with the grease - you hold that sandwich the wrong way and it will slide right out of your hands.  And if you get any grease on your sundress, well, I'm sorry, Janet, there's no detergent strong enough to get it out.  It might even eat a hole into the fabric.

Sincerely,

Steven Maginnis

P.S.  As always, you know I still love you, right?  I must, since I gave you fair warning about Philly steak sandwiches. :-D 

International Olympic Corruption

A friend of mine from my writers' group alerted me to a report on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that appeared on "Real Sports," the HBO Sports show hosted by Bryant Gumbel.  The report depicted how the IOC has an unsavory interrelationship between itself and countries that bid for the Olympics.  See, the countries (cities, not countries, are supposed to vie for the Games, but we all know that's a lie) bend over backwards to satisfy IOC members and their greed.  They don't so much bribe members of the committee as they are blackmailed by them.

The problem turns out to have be much worse than the nasty wheeling and dealing that brought the Summer Games to Atlanta in 1996 (how else could the Olympics have been been held in a city more defined by the 285 beltway than by anything resembling a downtown?) and the Winter Olympics to Nagano, Japan in 1998 (no skiing facilities, no sledding amenities, just craggy mountains that even the local monkeys wouldn't roam across).  IOC potentates are expected to be wined and dined at considerable expense and receive all sorts of favors, causing bidders to spend a lot of time, money and energy on the Games.  This was supposed to be cleaned up after all of the bribery that plagued the organizing committee for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics (and was rectified by Mitt Romney when he took it over), but no, it still goes on.  The money spent on the facilities for the Games comes out of public amenities for the poor and the middle class.  That's why Sochi was still a mess after the 2014 Winter Olympics and why Rio de Janeiro has become even more uninhabitable for the locals.  

Maybe Bill Kristol was right back in 2009 when he said Chicago didn't need the 2016 Olympics.  Lord knows Chicago needs a whole lot of other things.  Like a mayor who's not in the pocket of big business.    

And who makes most of the money for the Games themselves?  I'll give you a hint; it's not the host cities.  The host cities, in fact, are left holding the bag for maintenance costs for those same facilities.  The IOC gets walks away with most of the profits.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach (below), who was a gold-medal fencer for West Germany at the 1976 Montreal Olympics, was supposed to do something about all this, and given that he is a former athlete himself, the athletes were expected, so I have been led to understand, to benefit from his presidency.

Yeah, well, without the athletes, there's no Olympic movement.  It's supposed to be all about the athletes, because it's the athletes who compete, it's the athletes who break world records and all that, and it's the athletes we all revere, not the IOC members . . . and it's the athletes we all develop silly celebrity crushes on; I wonder if you all know who I'm talking about? ;-)  Ha ha, I have a ladyfriend who loves to check out Ryan Lochte, and not necessarily when he's swimming.

So I hope Bach gets all that and pursues some real reform in the IOC.  Because it is indeed all about the athletes.  After all, despite the fact that Bach was an Olympian himself, no one tuned into the opening ceremony at Rio to check out Bach's sexy bod. :-p       

And if Los Angeles does lose its bid for the 2024 Games, that will mean that Angelenos didn't compromise their integrity - or, at least they didn't compromise it as much as the residents of the city with the winning bid.