What’s up with China’s Olympic accommodations?
Don’t the Chinese even have the Potemkin village concept down?
Maybe they realize that ratings are abysmal, and so this time the whole world isn’t watching. Because this sounds awful:
Complaints from athletes and officials are pouring in about the alleged poor living conditions, dining options, isolating rooms, and debilitating weather conditions, according to social media posts.
German Alpine skiing coach Christian Schwaiger criticized the catering in Beijing and raised concern about limited food options to fuel the high-performing pro athletes.
“The catering is extremely questionable because really it’s not catering at all. “There are no hot meals,” Schwaiger said, via the Sun.
“There are crisps, some nuts and chocolate, and nothing else. This shows a lack of focus on high-performance sport.”
Team USA reportedly came prepared and brought extra food to the Winter Games, including bags of pasta.
Starve and freeze and isolate the athletes from foreign countries, and maybe your own athletes will get more medals. But you won’t be getting any PR points for style.
They’re isolating anyone who test positive for COVID:
Athletes who test positive for COVID-19 at the Winter Games, but are asymptomatic, must isolate in a designated hotel. For those experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, immediate hospitalization is required.
Athletes can return to competition once they have submitted two consecutive negative tests.
Here’s a quote from a Finnish ice hockey coach:
Head coach Jukka Jalonen blasted: “Marko has been with our team for about a week before we came here and he tested negative.”
“We know that he’s fully healthy and ready to go and that’s why we think that China, for some reason, they won’t respect his human rights and that’s not a great situation,” he added.
For some reason China “won’t respect his human rights”? Where have you been, Jukka?
To top it all off, the weather has been bad, too. Doesn’t harm the indoor venues, but for outdoor sports it’s a problem.
The ratings are down considerably, the Chinese hosts are mired in controversy (bad food, idiotic COVID rules, fake snow, etc), while most sensible traditional Americans have been disgusted by the wokeness of almost all entertainment and athletic competition, including “sportsball” (the halftime show this Sunday will, without question, be the worst ever). Meanwhile, Eileen Gu, born in SF, has chosen to compete for China and yet refuses to answer questions about having renounced her U.S, citizenship, while Zhu Yi, born in LA but representing China, has been criticized relentlessly on Chinese social media for performing poorly. Could one possibly imagine a more dispiriting spectacle or one which better represents the decadent era in which we live?
Olympic food is bad because Trump implemented trade restrictions that undermined the wonderful excellence of Chinese cuisine. This is only the beginning of an international food fight. Blue state masked buffets for minorities will suffer most.
I don’t know… maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to have a deeply corrupt, authoritarian state that’s well noted for:
1.) large scale, flagrant human rights abuses
2.) unleashing a deadly pandemic upon the world that killed millions and wreaked tens of trillions of economic destruction
3.) disappears any high profile citizens who have evidently displeased those in power in any way
4.) monitors social media and scores its citizens based on their behavior
… maybe that’s not perhaps the best nation to host the Olympics? Maybe I’m crazy though.
Hey now, China has 5,000 years of civilization. Surely Confucian catering tops anything the round-eyed, hairy barbarians could provide.
ambisinistral:
I knew quite a few people who toured China back in its Communist days, and they said the food they were served was good. And that was back when the Chinese economy was pretty low level.
So this Olympic food situation must be purposeful, I think, because if they wanted to serve good food they could.
neo:
Yes, I’ve been to both Hong Kong and Taiwan and Chinese food is very good. The CCP Olympic catering is clearly lacking. I agree with you that it is intentional.
There is no longer any need for the Olympics. As neo pointed out in a previous post, with the admission of professional athletes the soul of the games has been lost. Also, all of the events have World Championships, usually annually, often within weeks or months of the games.
And now, as neo and others have pointed out, with athletes switching countries as often as NBA, MLB, NFL and NHL switch teams, the “home town (country)” component for spectators is completely lost.
Like most International things, the International Olympic Committee has been corrupt for most of the history of the modern games. Sports with arbitrary points awarded by judges are rife with corruption. Doping/performance enhancing drugs and methods to avoid detection have polluted much of the competition and made many scores, times and records questionable.
Rhetorical question; is there anything collectivists gain control of that isn’t ruined?
Nonapod,
The International Olympic Committee simply went with the highest bidder.
Why do I think that members of the Chinese Olympic Team are being well fed?
Oh, sorry; forget I said that. It’s just too crazy of a thought.
By the way, did you hear that the two greatest enemies in world history are about to sign a non-aggression and economic trade agreement?
Really, now; only a moron would think that Stalin would sign any agreement at all with Herr Hitler.
OK, that’s going too far back in history.
But a more recent moronic notion is that Iran (a Persian, Shia muslim nation) is actually sheltering members of Al Qaeda (Arab, Sunni muslim).
Really now, Persians and Arab hatred for each other goes back a few thousand years; the Persians believe Arabs are dirty dogs and otherwise sub-human; and the Persian would love to resurrect their hegemony over the Arab world.
The stupid ideas that one hears are really beyond belief.
As they always do, Geoffrey Britain. Especially the bidder offering the most economic favors to the committee and their relations.
Norway pulled out of the competition to host the Games because they didn’t want to provide all the perks the officials demanded.
I agree that the Olympics have lost the real reason for their existence – amateur competition that promotes good will among nations. Today it’s filled with pros, rife with corruption, highly politicized, and is a mishmash of events that have been dreamed up by people looking for more ways to cash in.
Getting rid of them would be as hard as getting an addict off crack. Too many chances for graft, political conniving, and pandering by the elites.
Watching the alpine events has been a strange experience. Ski runs with snow and bare mountains around them. Like a Disney World for alpine events. And the snow – looks more like plastic than real snow. The NBC attempts to build drama have mostly fallen short and you can tell they’re very disappointed that Michael Schiffrin has not skied up to expectations.
I’ve been amazed at the general low levels of smog. The CCP has apparently shut down some coal-fired plants that are polluters near Beijing.
Bad food is surprising. That it’s intentional seems correct. The Chinese know now to cook and can make a good meal out of just about any ingredients.
The figure skating has been very high level. But all these skaters have competed at world and national championships.
This is just another day at the office for them.
Overall, not a very interesting Olympics.
” The one who was born a genius can’t win against the one who tries, and the one who tries can’t win against the one who enjoys.”
Confucius
”The one who was born a genius can’t win against the one who tries, and the one who tries can’t win against the one who enjoys.”
Confucius didn’t say that. But it sounds cute and contains a seductive Just So germ of untruth.
None of the above stands a chance against the self-directed psychopath who *enjoys* the mechanics, processes and results of winning, or even better DEFEATING. Now you can’t and shouldn’t tell the children that in school for reasons I shouldn’t need to elaborate upon. But you can’t keep any kind of hmm… let’s call it a… Constitutional Republic for argument’s sake around for more than five minutes if adults with ye gads the Franchise actually *believe* that nonsense in para 1 about the adult world and the fish who swim in it.
Z pounds his same old drum, race and old country origin are everything and the USA is the same as any sh*thole country. Maybe because he couldn’t pass a citizenship test? Nope, it’s because no country is good enough for “Z, The Exalted!”