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Contents
3 •
Editor’s Comment
Insight
2 • Singapore partners with Acclaim
in Singapore
8 • eSporting Heroes
10 • When you exercise too much:
Exercise Addicion
21 • NHL Insurers headache over
concussions
22 • How the mighty have fallen:
Ranger’s timeline to
destruction
23 • The Bountygate Scandal
Feature Articles
4 • Altitude Training: Mountains of
benefit or mountains of hype?
12 • Spotlight on Sport: Parkour:
Leaping from the rooftops
14 • Getting ripped with P90X2
16 • Greek Tragedy: How the
financial crisis has hit Greek
sport
Interview
6 • Interview with South African
Bowls Champion, Tracy-Lee
Botha
Risk Management Focus
24 • Water Safety Guidance launched
Through Legal Eyes
20 • Constitutional Disorders
Update
21 • Relaxing Dangerously revisited
18 • World Sports News
Roundup
26 • Sports Shorts
Steve Boucher
touchline@sportscover.com
touchline
The journal of sport, leisure & risk with an international perspective
Issue 12
Later this year Dubai is holding the
first forum for emerging nations
looking to host major sports events.
This subject is highly topical following
Russia and Qatar’s successful FIFA
Football World Cup bids for 2018
and 2022 respectively and the bids
by Doha, Istanbul and Baku, together
with Tokyo, Madrid and Rome for the
2020 Olympic Games. Similarly, who
hadheardof Sochi before theRussian
city won the right to host the 2014
Winter Olympics or Pyeongchang in
South Korea for 2018?
It is good to see new cities in the
running for major events. It provides
them with an opportunity to step up
on the world stage and show what
they can do. The marketing potential
to showcase what they have to offer
is immense, especially for a city that
would not normally feature high up
on a holiday destination list.
However, whilst there can be
significant benefits, staging a major
event such as the Summer or Winter
Olympics or Commonwealth Games
can lead to significant drains on
public budgets with the government
spending in some cases billions of
dollars to subsidise the event.
Greece is in deep financial trouble,
partly attributable to the vast cost of
hosting the 2004 Games, and the
London Olympic budget is under
severe strain with questions being
raised in the UK about the value of
hosting such an event. Montreal took
30 years to pay for the stadiums it
built for the 1976 games. Salt Lake
City, Utah— which hosted the Winter
games in 2002—ended up $155
billion in debt. Athens finished $3.1
billion over budget for hosting the
2004 Games, although this would
probably have been considerably less
if the Greeks
had not left
e v e r y t h i n g
to the last
minute.
A lot of the
cost is related to the building of new
stadia and infrastructure which can
be of lasting benefit to the city and its
economy provided there is a realistic
and well developed legacy plan in
place tomakegooduseof the facilities
afterwards. This is particularly true in
an emerging nation.
However, the problem is that many
of these events are now seen as
spectacles rather than purely sporting
events. Each host nation tries to outdo
the previous in the glitz and glamour
department with the extravagance of
the entertainment, firework displays
and choreography. The opening and
closing ceremonies have become
bigger than the sports events that
are in between. The event should
be staged to showcase the sporting
prowess and achievements of the
athletes, but instead has become
more of a huge advertising hoarding
for the city or country.
So with the costs of staging major
events spiraling, wouldn’t it a good
time to reflect on what these events
are all about and what is really
important.
Perhaps the forum in Dubai will
provide an opportunity to get back to
basics and focus on making sure that
sport rather than marketing or glitz
are given the centre stage. Surely
it is the efforts and achievements
of the athletes that we should be
celebrating, not the spectacular
firework display.
SPORT OR SPECTACLE?