Skip to content
Join our Newsletter
  1. Home
  2. Opinion
  3. Letters

Remove commercialism from the Games

On the eve of my eighth decade, I am contemplating the spectacular performances and events at the Olympic Games. Fleetingly, my thoughts return to Games of long ago when all were amateurs, and great names like Owens, Zatopek, Nuurmi and Haag.
Stephen Lamb
img-0-7070285.jpg
Romania's Nadia Comaneci, then age 14, mesmerizes crowds at the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal. But the Games ceremonies come at a cost and have grown more extravagant, a letter-writer notes.

On the eve of my eighth decade, I am contemplating the spectacular performances and events at the Olympic Games.

Fleetingly, my thoughts return to Games of long ago when all were amateurs, and great names like Owens, Zatopek, Nuurmi and Haag. Champions all.

Today, our world is in chaotic state, desperate human needs thwarted by lack of funds, we are told.

Coincidentally, extravagant, even garish, opening and closing ceremonies, likely for commercial profit, belie this sickening refrain. Public liability is the likely cost. (Remember Montreal 1976?)

What has all this showmanship to do with athletic excellence and prowess?

Certainly, all praise to the athletes, and huge congratulations to medal-winners, but please, cut out the carnivals. Have greed and crass commercialism now become the raison d'être, even at Olympic Games?

Stephen Lamb

Victoria