byLarry Eder
Thomas Bach, courtesy of IAAF.org
Thomas Bach, the IOC president, in his first speech at Sochi, criticized world leaders for boycotting Sochi 2014, in a report filed by insidethegames.biz.
Mr. Bach noted that several world leaders had not discussed their issues in another forum and used Sochi 2014 as an easy way to express their frustration with several current issues currently frustrating global leaders. Those include a) new Russian laws on “gay propaganda”, b) security issues in Sochi, c) a combination of the above.
We at RunBlogRun find Mr. Bach’s comments pretty expected for the environs. The truth is, there are security issues in Sochi, and more than any of the more recent Olympic Games. In this day and age, security at sporting events is a high priority and the combination of a media feeding frenzy and the actual issues of several disparate groups in Russia who want to blow things up in Sochi and make their point, the actual sporting events and athletes seem to be getting lost.
The truth is this: Groups who try and make their point with terrorist attacks tend to turn the majority of who they want to influence off, and in the end, their cause gets ignored and withers and dies. We hope and pray that security in Sochi is such that the athletes get a chance to focus on their competition and fans get to enjoy their Olympic visits.
Those must be points to be considered by the IOC in the future. Picking a country where a half dozen groups want independence and like to blow up things should be actually considered seriously. It seems, at times, that the IOC is so enamored with their influence on showing the world a new venue, that they forget that, it is getting harder and harder to find new venues and that using sites where safety can be pretty well assured, may make some sense.
Sochi 2014, which may be the most expensive Olympic site (at estimated $54 billion, even more expensive than Beijing 2008), hopefully, will be the most peaceful.
Here is the link for the full story:
