University Daily Kansan
Friday, April 16, 1976
9
Problems cloud Olympics' future
By GARY VICE
Sports Writer
The spirit of human achievement is the guiding light for the Olympics, but recent human failures have threatened the future of the games.
Darkening the outlook for future Olympics are the financial problems Montreal, the host city of this year's summer games, is having in staging the XXI Olympics.
Coordinating Montreal's efforts to get the Olympic nomination was Mayor Jean Drapeau, Canada's most successful and powerful urban political boss.
The Candian city was selected by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) as the site of the Olympiad over two other bidders. Los Angeles and Moscow.
He told the IOC that by selecting Montreal, the Olympics would be free from politics. The committee, in choosing Montreal, tried to avoid any East-West battle. He said they might have developed if either the United States or the Soviet Union had been selected.
But the Olympics, a festival of sport and an international gathering, has become a major problem for Montreal. The first Canadian city ever to host the games has fallen into a deep financial crisis with the weighty costs of the project.
In his early estimates, Drapa said the cost for all Olympic construction would be $250 million. He sought a budget of $310 million to handle the entire operation
From the start, the federal and provincial governments told Drapeau that Montreal would be on its own financially, and they would not subsidize the games.
Since the original estimates, the cost of constructing the Olympic site has skyrocketed to over $1 billion. Costly labor strikes coupled with high inflation were the main factor in the soaring prices. Some estimates place the final costs at more than $2 billion.
The labor disputes have delayed construction by 100 days and forced Montreal to scrap many of its elaborate plans to complete the project for the opening ceremony of the games.
Gone are the plans for the Olympic stadium's 10-acre retractable roof and 18-story tower with revolving restaurant. Olympic contractors have a daily payroll of $2 million for constructing the 70,000 seat stadium and surrounding facilities.
The decisions to make the cuts in the construction were made under Montreal Province, which took over control of the Olympic planning at Montreal's problems threatened to delay
Montreal's experience has become the biggest and most expensive sports extravaganza in history. The financial problems in staging the games may make it
impossible for another city to independently host the games. Munich, site of the 1972 Olympics, is still struggling beneath her carried from its $600 million expérience.
Such problems have led to suggestions that a permanent Olympic site be constructed. Most prefer that at Athens, Greece, not that at Olympia Games, be selected as this site.
There are other problems which face the future of the games. Some of these are political problems in the 1972 games in Iraq, where the teams and coaches were killed by Arab terrorists.
Many black athletes have used the highly publicized Olympics as a forum for black nationalist activism. The athletes joined with several African nations to ostund Rhodesia from participation in the games. The athletes had threatened to withdraw, but the anticleric" Rhodesia was allowed to compete.
U. sspirator Tommie Smith and John Carlos didn't honor the playing of the national anthem at their awards ceremony at the 1968 games in Mexico City. Both black athletes bowed their heads and raised a clenched-fist salute to the flag.
At the 1972 games two more black sprinters, Vince Matthews and Wayne Collette of the U.S., failed to show respect to the national anthem. Both were barred from future Olympic competition by the players, taking on around on the awards platform."
If the staging of the Olympics becomes
too much of a burden for the participating contrarian and is discontinued, it won't be its
The ancient version of the games was halted in A.D. 394 after nearly 1,000 years without interruption by the emperor of Rome, who called it a paan festival.
After 15 centuries, the games were resurrected by a French nobleman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin. That first edition of the Modern Olympic Games was in 1896 in Athens at a cost of $386,000 to a wealthy Greek merchant.
At the 1868 Olympic only 10 nations and 59 athletes competed. A fier cry from the 11,000 athletes from 135 nations who will crowd in Montreal's Olympic Village.
At the Olympic revival in 1886, Baron Coubertin said, "The important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning, but in taking part."
His words became the Olympic Creed. A creed that has suffered in the past several years.
Once again the Jayhawk track squid is being led by four cannails.
Kansas captains
The captains for the 1978 squad are Rudy Guevara, Newark, N.J., senior, weightman; Keith Guinn, Shawne Mission junior, jumpers; Randy Benson, Montebello, Calif., senior, sprinters; and Bill Landberg, Jackson, Mich., senior, distance runners.
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