Olympic Dreams – and Nightmares

South African officials are apparently in discussions with the International Olympic Committee about the possibility of staging the Olympic Games in either 2036 or 2040, that is to say, the Summer Games and the Para-Olympics.

This initiative seems to have been taken by the Presidency without consultation either with Parliament or anyone else.

It is a completely terrible idea.

The plan, unsurprisingly, is that Cape Town should be the host city – it’s now South Africa’s only presentable city. But as anyone who lives in Cape Town knows, the city tends to fill up in summer: the always bad traffic jams become intolerable, crime increases, it becomes very difficult to book a restaurant, and local residents perforce have to stay at home. The thought of adding huge Olympic crowds to that is close to unthinkable.

There is also the question of expense. This is always far greater than host cities imagine. If you take all the Summer Olympics from 1960 to 2020, they have on average exceeded their budget by 172%. And the Olympic Games have grown: there are now around 200 participating nations. The International Olympic Committee has strict requirements: 40 000 high-quality hotel rooms for Olympic spectators, an Olympic village to host 15 000 athletes, officials, and referees, and modern and high-quality internal and external transport facilities to carry spectators in and out of the host city and from venue to venue. Typically, this means building new airports, roads and railway lines.

There must also be sports facilities of a specified minimum size and quality, and with very specific security and safety protocols. This usually requires the building or at least comprehensive refurbishment of existing facilities, especially for minority sports, such as velodromes, natatoriums (for swimming), sliding tracks, and so on – although these tend to become white elephants after the Games in many host cities.

In some cases, cities have demolished some of their Olympic buildings after use rather than face high-maintenance costs for white elephants.

Warning

The Montreal Olympics of 1976 stand as a terrible warning. The Games were initially budgeted at a lower amount but the figure kept rising to a final sum of $207 million. In fact, the Games cost $1.6 billion. The scope of the construction work was far greater than envisaged and by 1975 it was way behind schedule, forcing the Quebec provincial government to take over responsibility from the city of Montreal.

Even so, the organisers faced virtual blackmail by the construction workers’ union, led by André Desjardins. In the end, the Premier of Quebec had to make a secret deal to pay off Desjardins. Anxiety grew as the Games neared, causing the mayor of Montreal, Jean Drapeau, to declare – unwisely – that “the Olympics can no more have a deficit than a man can have a baby”.

Ultimately, this led to a famous cartoon. There was at that time in Montreal a famous/notorious abortion provider called Morgentaler. In the cartoon an extremely pregnant Drapeau is phoning from the mayor’s office: “’Allo, Morgentaler…?”

In fact, the opening ceremony for the Montreal Olympics had to be held in a still-unfinished stadium. The Montreal Tower, which was supposed to be the stadium’s crowning glory, was only erected eleven years later. This was all very embarrassing since Queen Elizabeth II, as Queen of Canada, had elected to open the Games, bringing with her a royal party including her youngest son, Andrew, who was still a prince in those days. The Queen – who gave speeches in fluent French as well as English – was not used to having to give speeches in uncompleted buildings and the British press increased Canadian mortification by dwelling on the fact.

In the end Montreal lost $990 million on the Games – a huge financial disaster. This was, indeed, how the Games are remembered in Montreal. A special tobacco tax was levied to help pay down the loss, but even so it was not until December 2006 – thirty years later – that the slate was finally wiped clean. (Cape Town residents might ask themselves how they would feel about having to pay greatly increased household rates for the next thirty years to make up for the huge gamble of holding the Olympics.)

Few gains

There were few compensating gains. The retractable roof of the Olympic Stadium never worked properly and thereafter the stadium had to be closed for lengthy periods to allow (expensive) repairs to take place. But the stadium itself was a white elephant, far too big for local sports clubs. Today it is untenanted. Originally christened the Big O, it became known as the Big Owe.

One of the reasons for this huge cost overrun was the high cost of security. At the preceding Munich Olympics, Palestinian terrorists had massacred 11 Israeli athletes, so that all the Israeli athletes in Montreal wore black armbands. But the age of terrorism also caused the cost of security to shoot up, and since the opening and closing ceremonies are such huge events (and obvious targets), they are particularly expensive.

The Games since Montreal have only got more expensive. Seoul (1988) was budgeted at $4 billion but never published figures for the actual cost. Barcelona (1992) budgeted $850 million but the Games actually cost $9.3 billion. Sydney (2000) went only 11% over its budget of A$6 billion but still lost US$2.1 billion. The Athens Games (2004) cost $9 billion and greatly contributed to the Greek financial crisis. The Beijing Games (2008) were budgeted at $44 billion and no other figures were ever published. The London Games (2012) cost $16.3 billion. One of my former students was put in charge of overseeing them and was widely congratulated for keeping costs down. The Rio Games were budgeted at $13.1 billion. When the bills finally came in, they cost $23.6 billion and the governor of Rio de Janeiro declared a state of emergency. The Tokyo Games (2020) were budgeted at $15.4 billion and cost $28 billion.

Of course, we don’t know what the Games in Cape Town might cost, but given recent experience it would be wise to assume it wouldn’t be less than $20 billion, or R340 billion – at current prices. By 2036 or 2040 that wouldn’t be less than R500 billion. One should not forget that Cape Town has the worst problem of gang violence in the country and that the influx of wealthy foreign visitors would present enormous opportunities for theft and kidnapping. And our police force hardly inspires confidence, so the Games’ security cost would be very high.

In addition, Cape Town is home to some extreme pro-Hamas elements so there would have to be particularly heavy security precautions to protect American and Israeli athletes and spectators.

Soccer World Cup

We really ought to have learnt from experience by now. The 2010 Soccer World Cup in South Africa was enormously expensive and all that it left behind was a number of white elephant stadiums. And South Africa failed even to get through the first round of the soccer competition. It is worth pointing out that the National Party regime (1948-94) left behind a number of impressive public works – the national highway system, the Verwoerd Dam (now the Gariep Dam, the nation’s largest), the Huguenot Tunnel and so on – but that in 31 years so far the African National Congress (ANC) has bequeathed only these large and little-used World Cup stadia, an ironic comment on the ANC’s absurd priorities.

The fact is that the World Cup meant having a party and the ANC loves having parties. There’s no end to the special receptions and dinners, birthday celebrations, funerals and other symbolic occasions it celebrates.

One can see this even at local level. In Khayelitsha both the Democratic Alliance (DA) and ANC representatives get an allowance which they can spend on their constituents there.

The DA spends its money on tarring sections of road, mending roofs or installing a library – permanent improvements for their constituents. The ANC spends its money, yes, on parties, which is to say, fast food and alcohol.

In 2015 Durban bid for the 2022 Commonwealth Games – a much smaller affair than the Olympics – but in 2017 it had to think again and realised it couldn’t possibly afford it and backed out. Similarly, no country was willing to bid for the 2012 Winter Olympics for perfectly sensible cost reasons.

South Africa is not a great Olympic nation. In 2024 in Paris South Africa won one gold, three silver and two bronze medals, finishing 44th in the medals table. Typically, we do best at swimming, a minority sport.

Given all this, why on earth should the Presidency imagine it a good idea to start making a bid for the Olympics?

South Africa is a deeply indebted country with immense social problems and a crying need for more productive investment. A huge part of our population is saved from starvation only by a vast system of poor relief. Most of our towns and cities are falling to bits for lack of spending on maintenance and infrastructure. And, heaven knows, the ANC has any number of other large projects that it would like to spend money on, which we absolutely don’t need and can’t afford: National Health Insurance, a state bank, a state shipping company, a state pharmaceutical company, etc.

For many years to come we will have our work cut out trying to repair the damage of state capture and indebtedness bequeathed by former president Jacob Zuma, let alone the shocking state of our ports and railways.

Huge party

So whence comes this childish urge to hold a huge party for all the world – which is what the 2010 World Cup was and what the 2036 or 2040 Olympics would also be? We have all heard the rhetoric about “putting South Africa on the map” and “showing the world we can do it”, but this is mere flim-flam.

The idea that holding the Olympics would greatly increase the country’s attractiveness to tourists doesn’t really stand up. The key fact is that we are very distant from all our major tourist markets, which increases the cost and hassle of getting here compared to other, closer destinations. Holding the Olympics won’t change that.

All that we can hope for is that the mayor and city council of Cape Town will be more sensible and say, “We really don’t want the Olympics, thank you.” Most Cape Town residents would probably breathe a sigh of relief if that happened. It’s true that Cape Town bid for the 2004 Olympics but that was in the full flush of the Mandela era when the country was drunk on symbolism. We are, one hopes, more sensible and grown-up now.

As it is, Cape Town is facing major challenges of how to keep up with the demands generated by its own headlong growth, including coping with its booming tourist industry which is humming along quite nicely as it is. There is really no need to “showcase the city”, as the Olympic enthusiasts like to say.

The city faces no end of more mundane tasks such as how to deal with its jammed-up transport system and its need to build more low-cost housing. There has just been a major row over increased municipal charges and the last thing the city needs is to take a huge financial gamble with the Olympics. That sort of foolish initiative is typical ANC thinking and Cape Town, thank heaven, is a more sensible city. Or, at least, I really hope so.