Was this the 2008 Olympics or Winter Olympics? 3.9 billion is very cheap.
2022 Olympic Winter Games Beijing
- Thread starter Strangelove
- Start date
Was this the 2008 Olympics or Winter Olympics? 3.9 billion is very cheap.
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
It's this winter Olympics. I think the 2008 Summer Games was controversial because then it was the most expensive to date. I forget how much.
Not really. Every Summer Olympics post Beijing cost more than it did even factoring in inflation. All in all it was very good bang for the buck.
Not $26BILLION Tokyo expensive
AssassinsMace
Lieutenant General
Pardon that's what I meant that the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics were the most expensive up to that date.
There is a Chinese saying: "曾今沧海难为水，除却巫山不是云". When China stops bidding for hosting Olympics, all future games would give viewers some sort of mediocre feelings. And IOC would cry Beijing for rescue. West always want the cake and eat it too. It is time that Chinese say "thanks, but no thanks" to IOC.
China literally saved the Olympics this time. If not for China, the country which would have hosted the event would be Kazakhstan....
The IOC really dodged a bullet on this one
Beijing 2008 had direct costs of $6.8 billion in 2015-dollars, which is actually on the cheaper side for recent Olympics, e.g. London 2012 cost $15 billion.
Western media's claim that Beijing 2008 was the most expensive summer games ever with total costs of $40+billion is based on the inclusion of "indirect costs", namely costs of infrastructure development in Beijing and "nearby" areas in the years before 2008. These include
- Multiple subway lines in Beijing
- High speed rail line between Beijing and Tianjin
- Light rail line in Tianjin
- Airport expansions/improvements in Beijing and other cities in Northern China including the Hohhot airport in Inner Mongolia, nearly 500km away from Beijing
- Numerous new highways, roads, bridges
- Power plant and factory upgrades to reduce air pollution
Of course, Western media rarely mentions how they arrived at their often quoted total of $40+billion for Beijing 2008. If they did, any reasonable person would see how ridiculous it is to include basic infrastructure work that would have happened regardless of the Olympics in the total cost for Beijing 2008.
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