Positive And Negative Impacts Of The Olympics

The whole world is focusing on Rio’s Summer 2016 Olympics, which is happening right now. Everyone is cheering and rooting for their country’s teams. As with everything else, good sides will always come with disadvantages. The Olympics was created to unify countries into one tournament, it brings together many nationalities over one match, and it is where every athlete is expected to respect the strict regulations and to compete fairly. With that said, one of the many good effects of the Olympics includes encouraging diversity and embracing multiculturalism.

However, there are also increasingly negative side effects of the Olympics. For example, there are, and have been, various atrocities within the Olympic divisions, such as with judges, competitors, bribing, and the list could go on. There have been countless news reports that attempt to shed light on corruptions, such as between a judge and a competitor. These corruptions happen due to the desire of wanting their representing country to win medals in order to raise pride and patriotism for their nations. As well, the Olympics have been receiving a lot of negative criticism as to how it is not a world competition, instead it is only an ego boosting fight between powerful and privileged countries.

Furthermore, in order for countries to host the Olympics, governments invest enormous funds in building Olympic arenas and to make certain Olympic featured areas look more aesthetically pleasing. In particular, the Rio Olympics have been even called “a total con job” by Mateus Braga, one of the local residents of Rio, Brazil. He further commented that the Olympics are designed for foreigners so they can come here and enjoy it all, while Brazilians bear the consequence of the government not spending on education, healthcare or sanitation.” It is approximated that somewhere between $10 billion to $12 billion has been spent on the Olympic games in Brazil.

Brazil is known for its disparity between the lower and higher economic classes. However, the question remains as to whether the Brazilian government should have spent a large amount of money to become an Olympic host? The Rio Olympics is already happening and the least we can do now is to be aware of the negative consequences that are occurring side-by-side with the loud cheers and laughs. Another resident of Vidigal has complained thatthe price of everything has increased. For instance, housing, rentals, food, and everything else that you can think of is increasing, whereas it was cheaper before the hype of tourism and Olympics.

On the other hand, tourism companies have been in greater demand, such as Favela Experience tourism, and the organization focuses on giving out 40% of his revenues towards an NGO that funds community English lessons, ballet classes, and sustainability workshops. Therefore, while preventing the Olympic games is impossible and it can bring about positive societal effects, we should and must enforce other ways to reduce the discrepancies as much as possible.

Jisue Shin
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