Are the Olympics losing their shine?

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL (NEWS 1130) – Call it a rally in Rio as Team Canada netted another four medals yesterday, including Olympic gold in women’s wrestling. But as our athletes add more glitter to their tally, there are questions about whether or not the Olympic movement is starting to lose its shine.

From doping to cost cutting to athlete scandals, the Summer Games in Brazil are the latest to be plagued by problems and controversy. “There are fewer and fewer cities that want to hold a Summer Games,” says Maclean’s Magazine Olympic Correspondent Jonathon Gatehouse who’s in Rio.

“The next one they are going to award for 2024, you’ve got some marquis cities in the running like Paris, Rome, Budapest and Los Angeles, but there are certainly issues with the Winter Games. The last choice the International Olympic Committee had for the 2022 Games was between Almaty, Kazakhstan and Beijing, China,” he tells NEWS 1130.

“Beijing is nearly 200 kilometres away from the mountains but the IOC went with it because they just didn’t see how they could possibly have a Games in Kazakhstan.”

And Gatehouse predicts it will become increasingly difficult for the IOC in the years ahead. “They were begging, cap in hand, for cities to bid for 2024. They were pushing Canada to give them an option with Toronto and looking at cities like Boston.”

“The IOC has brought down something called Agenda 2020 which is supposed to streamline the bidding process and reduce the costs and limit the size of the games in terms of athletes and events, thereby making them more manageable.”

Gatehouse adds the IOC is also looking at other cost-saving measures like reusing old venues. “But it’s all the other things that come with the Games that drive up the costs, like infrastructure and transit. It is a huge problem and it is one the Olympic Committee is going to have to get their minds around.”

The Rio Olympic Games wrap up Sunday with the next summer games set to take place in Tokyo in 2020. The 2018 Winter Olympics will be held in Pyeongchang, Korea.

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