Grandstanders,
While "The Quiet Games"
in Tokyo were a pleasant enough diversion from more pressing
matters, it goes without saying the lack of atmos was palpable.
There were some stunning athletic moments and achievements of
course, but with no screaming fans going apeshit or legions of
that special kind of Japanese lunatic that would have turned out
at every venue to marvel at, well, it wasn't the same. Nothing
is the same anymore, least of all the future of spectator
sports. Let's face it. It's been all downhill since Syderney
2000, and those days have well & truly gone away. The AFL
Grand Final to be staged in Perth and the decider in the
National Rugby League to be played in Auckland in order to have
some kind of of crowd - any crowd - rent-a-crowd - gives you an
idea of where this is all heading.
The good burghers of Brisbane better be careful what they wish for just at the moment when everything is nothing more than a day-to-day proposition; the denizens of the city of Hamburg got it spot on a few years back now - seen on the streets of the city in the lead up to the 2015 referendum on bidding for the 2024 Olympics, in which the resounding vote was NO...
...so the Games went to Paris/Los Angeles (LA was meant to have 2024, but they swapped with Paris for 2028. No one asked why). There were no other bidders. The Corona is the only thing that's changed in all those years...and, oh, and the entire lack of interest in staging the Olympics. The deeply privileged & entitled, absurdly ostentatious and astonishingly corrupt multi-billion dollar business that is the International Olympic Committee might have something to do with it...sorry Brisvegas, but there are bigger fish to fry. Never mind the games' impending death knell at the heavily boycotted shambles that will be the winter Olympics in Beijing next year.
