To compete at the Olympic Games is the
pinnacle of every athlete's career. Years of training,
dedication, effort, blood, sweat and tears go into the preparation
for just a single event in a single meeting which rolls around
every four years.
As athletes strive to go faster, higher and stronger, the fight to
play host to the spectacle is just as tough.
The cities which win have an amazing opportunity to demonstrate
their craft, logistical and engineering abilities and show off to
the world the very best their city has to offer.
The latest city to use host city status as leverage to portray all
that is good and why everyone should visit is Vancouver.
As has been found with other host cities, the organisers and
tourism chiefs don't have it all their own way in the
communication stakes.
As camera lights shine into areas which don't usually receive
such intense world-wide attention, the opportunity for public
grievances to be aired is presented like never before.
Running alongside the sliding down hills events of the Winter
Olympics has been a well-organised campaign to highlight various
inadequacies of the Canadian state machinery.
Despite the
absurd claim from one politician that all protesters were akin
to terrorists, the grass roots campaigners have made themselves
heard on an international scale.
The Olympic circus next touches down in London in 2 years time,
it's going to be interesting to see how things unfold.
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