Reflecting on organizing s big event

The Beijing Games are over and now every one is with the hang over them, we were able to get amaze by the human spirit that conquer the gold medal for trying and going beyond expectations, now the question remains what happens after the big event, every one involved in it, from the host city to the athletes and all of us that this week had to come back to our normal lives were we are not amaze by the power of human accomplishment, maybe I’m been a little too poetic for that matter, but the matter remains, what happens after all.
This kind of high level event gives the host city great advances for the seven years that plans it, for a long time, there is an economic growth derived from the fact that there is a lot work in the city, much more people get easily hired specially for construction jobs that will be there for quiet a while. There is also an improvement in general for the inhabitants of the city, they get brand new streets, security, and lightning and in general better public services, with all of this, one could make the argument that hosting the Olympics or any other big event for that matter is a great idea for the host city, but after the amounts of money needed to organize and event like this, one could wonder if the about 8 billion dollars that were spend on the beautiful sports venues, and the lavish opening and closing ceremonies are not better spend on things that will improve permanently the life of Chinese people or any other country that dares to organize an event like this.

The doubt is still there, we know about impressive stories like Barcelona, a city that after the ´92 Olympics has become a world recognize industrial and touristic center in Spain, we can also talk about Sydney that after hosting the Olympics in 2000 the city acquired a world recognition like never before, but we can also wonder how good the event was for a city like Atlanta that hosted the centenary games and after that nothing really important has happen to the city, or Athens that could not even complete the Olympic venues and one can not really see the improvement that the Olympics were supposed to bring. Still after the apparent success of Beijing, other cities form developing countries are now trying to go for the Olympic experience Rio is the latest of this that now is making the Bid for 2016 along with cities like Chicago, Madrid or Prague, we hope that the games five to the winning city all the improvement that is supposed but still, we always wonder even after seen accomplishments like Phelps´ 8 gold medals that all of this is worth it and it can not better be used on something that improves the living conditions of people permanently.

London 2012