Goodbye Paris – – Hello Los Angeles

The Paris Olympic Games are over – – at least the athletic competitions are over.  What remains from those Games is part of the dark side of many Olympic sports.  The Games are not completely written into history just yet as lawsuits and protests are only just beginning.  If you think you have heard the last of Jordan Chiles, you are wrong.  Her protest about her disqualification from winning a Bronze Medal in gymnastics has not nearly run its course.  In this morning’s Washington Post, there is a report on the events and the current situation there that covers 33 column-inches of territory in the Sports Section.

Meanwhile, the controversy about the gender of Imane Khelif who won a Gold Medal in Women’s Boxing has entered new territory completely.  In addition to claims and counterclaims about her being a man or a woman and in addition to reports about failed tests or not, French prosecutors have begun an investigation based on a claim of harassment filed by Khelif.  There is a section of the French prosecutorial establishment that tries to limit and punish online hate speech.  Khelif has certainly had serious detractors online during her Olympic performances and making a claim that those commentaries crossed over into hate speech assures that her name and her situation will continue to be in the mind of the sports public around the world.  The complaint filed by a French attorney says that she was subjected to a “misogynist, racist and sexist campaign” during and after her pursuit of a Gold Medal in the Olympics.

I have not yet read about any legal action(s) taken by swimmers who came down with diseases after swimming some events in the polluted Seine River.  If any of them emerge in the next several months, I will not be shocked and amazed…

And the Paris Olympic Games are over in another sense as well.  When the Olympic Flame was doused in Paris, the focus about Olympic organizing immediately shifted to Los Angeles for the 2028 games.  The mayor of LA, Karen Bass, was in Paris to – figuratively of course – take the baton and begin LA’s run as the site in 4 years.  And here are comparisons between the two sites that one is not likely to hear in these moments of euphoria:

• The Paris Olympics probably “made money” for the local and national economy because many of the facilities already existed.  Unlike other venues that had to spend heavily to create stadiums and arenas for the events, Paris did not need such expenditures.
• The LA Olympics should similarly show a profit for the same reasons.  Recall that the 1984 Olympics did the same thing when the games were in LA back then.
• The Parisians needed a venue for beach volleyball; Paris has no “beaches”.  So, they constructed a “sandbox” in the shadow of the Eifel Tower to accommodate the sport at minimal cost.
• In LA, there are plenty of “beach sites” provided by Mother Nature…

And of course, there are also some “question marks” and “challenges” that face the organizers and the pols in LA that will need to be addressed for the Games to be a positive experience:

• Mayor Bass declared that the LA Games will be “car free”.  How environmentally friendly is that?  How can anyone think that is a bad idea?
• Have you ever been to LA and tried to get around town on the public transit system there?  Don’t get me wrong, there is a transit system in existence; the problem is that it doesn’t go “everywhere”, and it takes forever to get from Point A to Point B when using it.  If there is going to be an Olympic Village in 2028 for all the athletes and if they are supposed to get to and from their athletic venues using public transit, let me be the first to wish all of them, “Good Luck!”

[Aside:  I’ll be interested to see how the TV production crews get all their equipment to and from various venues without cars/trucks.  Maybe they can use the “Beam-Me-Up-Scotty Machine…]

• In Paris the TV networks had beautiful backdrops for many of the production shots.  There are some pretty spots in LA but there is also a challenge for Madame Mayor there.  I read a report about 6 months ago that a census estimate of the homeless population in Los Angeles County was 75,000.  A tent city is not nearly as iconic as the Eifel Tower or the Louvre as a backdrop.

[Aside:  The good folks in California have taken the stigma out of being “homeless”.  Rather, folks who live in tent cities are known now as “unhoused individuals” putting the blame on those who provide “housing”.  And doesn’t that relabeling and rethinking make the problem so much better?]

The LA Games will be a success economically – – and presumably athletically too.  But matching the Paris Games in terms of atmosphere and grandeur might be a difficult standard to meet.  Mayor Bass was happy for the photo op to take the Olympic baton; now it is time to get to work to solve a couple big problems.

Moving on …  In case you missed it, the Chicago White Sox were mathematically eliminated from winning the AL Central Division on August 11^th.  The season ending game for the White Sox will not happen until September 29^th.  Wow!

Finally, words of wisdom by Yogi Berra:

“Love is the most important thing in the world, but baseball is pretty good too.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………