Pope Francis Cheers on Team Refugees at Rio Olympics

Lula da Silva on Rio Olympics

Increased Olympic Coverage?

The International Olympic Committee will be distributing a record 450,000 condoms for the 10,500 athletes and staff staying in the Olympic Village in Rio de Janeiro for the 2016 Summer Olympics. This includes 150,000 female condoms. That adds up to 42 condoms per guest at the Olympic Village.  





The 450,000 condom figure is a marked increase from the 100,000 to 150,000 prophylactics handed out in prior Olympiads since the 2000 games in Sydney, Australia.

The IOC and Rio Olympic organizers deny this increase in condoms is due to the threat of the Zika virus, which can be transmitted sexually as well as by mosquito bites.  The Zika virus can cause  microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with undersized brains and skulls.

Several prominent athletes are skipping the Summer Games in Rio prompted by the Zika outbreak, such as Fiji's Vijay Singh and Australia's Marc Leishman and Adam Scott.

As the Australians have lost two prominent athletes, they are not taking any chances for those who are not opting out. They are issuing the Aussie team with Ansell's Dual Protection condom lubricated with Starpharma's VivaGel lubricant, which is an antiviral agent touted with protecting against bad vaginal bacterial, some STDs and supposedly Zika.

The Olympics are scheduled to be held in Rio from August 5th to the 21st. Good luck.

Rivaldo Rebukes Rio Olympics Attendance

With less than three months before the XXXI Summer Olympics are set to begin in Rio de Janeiro, Brazilian soccer star Rivaldo warned fans against attending because of unchecked violence on the streets.



This is not the only logistical and public relations challenge Rio has needed to overcome in hosting the Olympics.  Rio was awarded the Summer Olympics in 2009 and had reason to ramp up the infrastructure hosting the Catholic World Youth Day in 2013 and the 2014 World Cup.  Yet in March, only 90-95 percent of the infrastructure was complete.  Rio organizing officials held a press conference to announce that they were ahead of schedule a couple of days after two workers were killed when a coastal bike path associated with green transportation between Olympic venues.

Of course, racing to complete infrastructure is nothing new for Olympic host cities.  What is more rarified is that the state government is broke so it failed to pay public workers like policemen, firefighters, doctors and nurses.  Thus a half million of them went on strike which shut down hospitals across the state.

Pollution still mires the Rio Olympics.  Last year, there was a study which revealed that Guanabara Bay are so polluted with fecal matter and other contaminants that  water Olympic athletes risked becoming ill rowing and sailing around the Copacabana.  It is dubious if the bankrupt state government can achieve what they have promised to fix for years.

Then there is the risk of the Zika virus from mosquito bites, especially to pregnant women and their unborn children. Some public health doctors have advised that the Olympics ought to be moved to protect the 16,000 athletes and expected 600,000 sports fans. Since that is unlikely, people will need to mitigate their feared risks.  The US Olympic committee has advised athletes that if they are concerned for their own health, they ought to skip the Rio games.  US Womens soccer star Hope Solo has publicly proclaimed that she won't go to Rio unless the situation changes. Several prominent pro golfers are also dropping out of competing in the Rio Games, but most cite a hectic summer PGA tour schedule  .

 South Korean athletes will wear tracksuits infused with insect repellent and will wear long pants and blazers for the opening and closing ceremonies to minimize Zika infections.

Ticket sales have been less than robust for the Rio games.  In early April, only 50% of the Olympic tickets have been sold, and just 12% of the Paralympic events.  The government has suggested that it might buy unsold tickets and distribute them to school children to fill the seats. 

Bruce Jenner on Being a Role Model

China's War on Golf

Last week, the Chinese Central government began a crackdown on golf by shutting down 66 "illegal" golf courses, which is 10% of the nation's fairways.  While  Beijing has be officially forbidden the construction of new golf courses since 1984, they have proliferated in the PRC. Between 2004 and 2009, 400 new golf courses were created despite the ban (tripling the number of links). But as the Chinese maxim goes, the mountain is high and the emperor is far away.

Aside from being good for generating yuan for their communities by catering to elites, foreign tourism and sparking ancillary business opportunities, golf courses were a great way to gain graft.
The local officials would line their pockets from the construction (as they expropriate peasants' land and profit from the sale to the golf industry) and they are can be surreptitiously sanctioned as being "ecological restorations".  How conveniently corrupt.

The day after the golf course crackdown occurred, a Commerce Ministry official was investigated (effectively being found guilty) for participating in a golf event, which violated one of Chinese President Xi Jinping's eight rules against extravagance by government officials. From a political perspective, it makes sense for a fledgling government to embrace the game.

Despite the burgeoning number of golf courses in China, it is considered "the millionaires game". Mao Zedong banned golf in 1949 as bourgeois "green opium".  Today, a round of golf can cost $150, in a nation where the average daily salary is $5. So it still remains "the rich man's game".

From a political perspective, it makes sense for a fledgling government not to be seen embracing the game of golf.  Gordon Chang has been warning for years that the Chinese economy is on a precipice and a severe world financial downturn which results in a weak demand for cheap Chinese labor could spark a downfall in the current polity in Beijing.  So a public crackdown from the Beijing government  on golf appeals to the have nots to  quell any clamoring for revolution while President Xi Jinping re-establishes central control over wayward provincial politicos engaged in crony capitalism.

Yet it is unlikely that China's War on Golf will actually forbid the game.  Beijing has been spending serious capital on grooming a team to qualify for the Rio de Jainero Olympics in 2016.  It's a tension between domestic tranquility and international glory.

Dan Washburn, the author of  "The Forbidden Game" (2014) considers Chinese Golf to be apt allegory for the corruption, land grabs, environmental issues and escalating economic disparity that have become hallmarks of New China.




Washburn is ambivalent as to what will result from the war on golf.  Washburn's metric is how the seized fairways are used in five years. Considering China's dismal track record on environmental issues, it is dubious if the seized courses will end up as actual "ecological restorations".

Will they be re-appropriated like the Shanghai Golf and Country Club in Hongqoai Park, which was converted into the Shanghai Zoo in 1954?  Or will the seized courses go the way of Wonderland, a Chinese rip off of Disneyland, which is rotting away due to lack of business and uncertain legalities.  China has a series of ghost cities, which are colossal waste of investment that temporarily pump up the GDP and esteem of a local official while saddling the area with a white elephant and a mountain of debt.

h/t: Dan Washburn 

Post Scriptus 04/10/2016: The Communist Party in China has now declared that teeing off is no longer a crime in China

Michael Phelps on a Comeback

Michael Phelps is the most decorated Olympic athlete ever, winning 22 Olympic medals (18 gold medals including 11 individual golds).  After the 2012 London Summer Olympics, Phelps reasoned: “I would be past 30 by the time the next Olympic. I have achieved what I wanted to achieve. If you can say that about your career, then it’s time to move forward, time to move on to other things. I finished my career how I wanted to.”  

Yet twenty months later, the Flying Fish is back in the US Swimming pool at the US Grand Prix in Mesa, Arizona.  Not only did Phelps win his first comeback race in the 100 meter butterfly, but his 52.84 time was the fastest qualifer for the final. 

The 28 year old Phelps is non-committal about whether he intends to compete in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Summer Olympics, but this sort of result after only six months of training bodes favorably for a fifth Olympic appearance. 

h/t:  The Daily Telegraph