With only one year to go there is increasingly more talk about the 2014 Winter Olympics. However, a large amount less than London 2012. Granted we were the host nation, but come to think of it I have never noticed a great hype about the Winter Olympics. Why is this? In the UK we don't exactly have many places to practice these winter sports. But I have also noticed there is no worldly interest in these games compared to the Summer Olympics.
This could be due to a number of reasons.
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| Ed Drake- Team GB in Vancouver 2012, BBC Sport |
Money
Living in a host city for an Olympic games you are consistently?? bombarded with the amount of money that is being spent to host these games. Every four years the cost of hosting these games has risen. For example; Sydney 2000 cost- £720million, Athens 2004 cost- £11billion and Bejing 2008 cost- £40billion.
Yes I know these are all summer games host cities, but in 2010 hosting cost Vancouver $7billion and for 2012 Sochi & Sponsors would have forked out over $50billion. This price is extraordinary, and unimaginable what is this money going on? The Winter Olympics has only 7 different sports and just over 80 events...
The cost of hosting has also lead to counties pulling out of the race to host these games. The Swiss cities of St Mortiz & Davos recently pulled out from running to host the 2020 Winter Olympics. Switzerland decided to pull out after the residents of the cities voted no. A major reason for the residents voting no was reported because of the high costs that Sochi and over cities has endured hosting the greatest shows on earth.
Sports
Both Summer and Winter Olympics are based around sports and competing on your countries behalf. Traditionally and in fact still today, the Winter Olympics has only attracted those countries who has a good winter for people to take part in these winter sports and become good at them. I think this is a major reason why the Winter Olympics are developing at the rate of Summer games or getting as much media attention, TV coverage, Sponsorship (not including Sochi), interest from the world and just attention in general.
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| Team GB Ice Hockey Vancouver 2010- BBC Sport |
Winter Olympians take part in 7 different sports with a grand total of 86 events. Compare with the summer games of 26 sports (sport that actually took place in London 2012) and 302 events (in London 2012). That is a HUGE difference. For the generation of today when attention span is low having around 5 different sports and 60 different events on each day is amazing, so much choice, drama, and activity.
I think its about time for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to start thinking about introducing new sports, if that it possible. How many winter sports can you name? I think there is only a limited amount of sports that uses snow or ice. This is where I think there needs to be a re-think of "winter sports". Could some summer sports be transferred over? Or invention of new sports?
If new sports are unable to be brought in, then something needs to done to spice up the existing sports. The sports in the winter games most people find them hard to relate too. For example; Curling? Not curling someones hair but the sport, I think I have made my point. There aren't many sports people can relate too, unless of course they live in the snowy areas of the world.
There are many things that need to change for the Winter Olympics to keep up with the success of the summer games. Hopefully the amount of money going into Sochi 2014, something spectacular will happen.
