Commentary: Olympics host cities don’t belong on a warming planet

SYDNEY: What’s the biggest event at the Olympic Games?

There’s a good case that it’s not running, or swimming, or gymnastics, but the celebration of nationhood. The opening ceremony to the 2008 Beijing Games was the most-watched event in television history. In the US alone, tens of millions routinely tune in to the first night’s display.

This year’s opening ceremony, beamed from Paris, the hometown of the modern Games’ founder Pierre de Coubertin, is likely to be no exception.

These parades are tremendous fun to watch. The ideal that animates them, however - that the Games belong in a single city to which athletes from across the world make pilgrimage - is looking increasingly threadbare.

As the world’s demographic and economic centre of gravity moves toward developing countries that will be experiencing choking summer heat by the middle of the next decade, it may become untenable.

That’s reason for the International Olympic Committee to follow the example of other governing bodies, such as those for soccer, tennis, and cricket, and give up on the idea that a premier sporting event has to be primarily held in one city. 

Since its inception, hosting the Olympics has been treated as a rite of passage for cities announcing their arrival on the world stage. Early contests wound up as side events to the boosterism of the 1900 Paris Exposition Universelle and 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The Tokyo 1964, Seoul 1988, and Beijing 2008 Games all heralded take-off growth for their host countries.

The legacy can go the other way, though: Mexico City 1968, Montreal 1976, and Rio de Janeiro 2016 left behind debt-ridden municipalities and unsettled nations. There’s a good chance we’ll see more of that once the current round of official hosts