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Peru to bid to host 2016 Summer Olympics

Living in Peru
Israel J. Ruiz


The government of Peru announced Wednesday afternoon that the Andean country would bid to host the 2016 Olympic events.

Authorities have confirmed their interest in bringing the Summer Olympics to Peru.

Although the deadline to submit bids was September 2007, the presidency of the republic issued a press release announcing that the country is to officially take its proposal before the International Olympic Committee.

Peru can provide the necessary conditions to host an event of this magnitude, said government representatives.

Cities that have already bid are Baku, Chicago, Doha, Madrid, Prague, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo. The seven cities have also submitted their application files, which were due by January 14, 2008.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is to meet in Athens in June to reduce the number of potential host cities. It is unknown how many will be eliminated.

The IOC will then choose the 2016 Games host city at its 121st session in Copenhagen, Denmark on October 2, 2009.

According to the Chicago Tribune, Chicago Olympic organizers have spent $9 million during the initial phase of the bid and are to spend another $49 million before the IOC chooses a host city.

It was noted that New York spent at least an estimated $50 million on a losing bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics.

The Chicago Tribune reported that a senior IOC member said that too much money was being spent to win the right to host the games.

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# Cynic says :
22 May, 2008 [ 00:49 ]

Typical peruvians, always late.

# Peru in 2020! says :
23 May, 2008 [ 15:43 ]

Wow Peruvians treat an Olympic bid the same way they do any other line. Come late and then jump in front of everyone.

Sorry folks I know Peru is on a high right now, and they should be, things are going great and they were fabulous in the EU-LAC summit.  But you can't just jump into the 2016 Olympic bid a month before the commitee meets, and 6 months after the application deadline.

How about getting serious, organized and going for 2020? 

# Panthro says :
28 May, 2008 [ 09:23 ]

hehe president Garcia just announced that Peru will bid to host the 2020 Olympic Games, hooray!!

# Carlos A. Quiroz says :
28 May, 2008 [ 19:11 ]

Please don't laugh too hard: Peru intends to organize the 2020 Olympic Games

If you are not familiar about Alan Garcia, let me break it down to you: he is the current President of Peru and he won a second term after a tricked and corrupted national elections in 2006, where the rich and powerful placed him as an alternative to socialist leader Ollanta Humala.

Previously and during his first term, Garcia was the youngest Peruvian president ever -from 1985 to 1990- in what has been considered as the worst government ever in Peru's history. His legacy includes thousands of innocent Peruvians killed by his military and allied-paramilitary; the worst poverty rates ever; and a chaotic state of the economy, society and politics. All of which caused a deep moral crisis among the population and opened the doors for an unknown candidate and good friend of Garcia: Alberto Fujimori.

In 1985, at the end of his first term, Garcia run away from Peru escaping criminal charges. He lived with his family in Bogota and Paris, in lavish luxurious houses and apartments that no one knows how he paid for. Fujimori cleared him from the accusations of robbery, assassinations and corruption. Eventually he returned to Peru to run for the presidency again. After being re-elected, he has shown signs of mental instability. As sad as it is, Alan Garcia has mental problems and he depends on medication to regulate his mood changes that are result of a bipolar disorder. He's got grandeur dreams and everyone around him is playing his game as long as they get their slice of the cake.

Now I explained all of this stuff so you can understand this news:

LIMA, Peru - Peruvian President Alan Garcia announced his country's intention to bid for 2020 Olympics on Wednesday, saying the Andean nation is ready for the challenge.

Garcia said Peru has grown significantly enough to stage the Olympic Games, pointing to the improvement in its economy, high level of foreign investment and decreasing poverty rates.

"Why can we think of hosting the Olympics? Does it surprise you so much?...Why can't we think big?" Garcia said in government release.

Garcia also responded Wednesday to criticism that Peru's infrastructure is insufficient to handle the Olympics. He says Peru should think big and aim for the games.

While the International Olympic Committee awards the games to cities, no specific location was identified in the government's announcement.

The largest athletic competitions in Peru to date were soccer's Copa America in 2004 and the Under-17 World Cup in 2005. - AP

Personally, I would love to see Peru hosting such an important event. But, come on! I could spend hours here writing about why Peru will not be ready to host the Olympic Games in 2020, 12 years from now. I will only mention the lack of a basic transportation system; a world-class infrastructure of housing, hospitals, communications and hotels; professional sport facilities, and prepared national teams. In some regions of Peru the rate of poverty goes up to 85% and electricity and water supplies can be as low as 30% in average.

With the exception of volleyball, shooting, surfing and marathon competitions, Peru has never showed success at international sports summits. In football (soccer) Peruvians used to be good but now is all about individual stars. In Peru, sports are in a primitive level of development even after the 2004 and 2005 soccer tournaments. Sports are not promoted professionally in public schools -like first-world countries do- and is mostly seeing as a luxury for the few, and a recreational field that most people can't afford to do it in a serious way. For some football (soccer) players it is also a way to get out of poverty, since they get to make good money in Europe even if they never perform well for the national team.

Peruvian kids play soccer and volleyball in dusty fields of the mountains, sandy beaches or neighborhood streets and most talented athletes have to use their own money to pay for expenses. In most international competitions, the few Peruvian athletes that attend travel just to have a nice experience sightseeing places they would never see otherwise. Some of them even get selected after a corrupted system where personal influences play an important role.

In all its Olympic games history, Peru has won only 4 medals: 1 gold and 3 silver. In the last 2004 games in Greece, Peru didn't obtain any medals. Other Latin American countries were more successful: Cuba (11th. place) got 27 medals, Brazil (16) 10 medals, Jamaica (34) 5 medals, Argentina (38) 6 medals, Chile (39) 3 medals, Bahamas (52) 2 medals, Dominican Republic (54) 2 medals, Mexico (59) 4 medals, Paraguay (65) 1 medal, Venezuela (68) 2 medals, and Trinidad & Tobago (71) 1 medal.

Now you can say that a country might change in twelve years, but that is the same time since I left Peru. During a trip to my homeland last year, I noticed that things have stayed to be exactly the same, with the exception that today Lima has more supermarkets, casinos, stores, cute trees and weird-looking apartment skyscrapers that are popping up in 3 or 4 districts. All of this while most of the city still remains as nothing but a huge shanty town.

Alan Garcia is nuts, seriously. This should not be a funny joke at all, but in times of disgrace some Peruvians prefer to take this news as real blooper.

Peru21, a Peruvian newspaper informs that a vlogger from Lima has made a video presented as a tentative publicity ad for the games. It shows images of the Peruvian capital city and the Estadio Nacional, the main sports facility of the country. Of course, it's just a joke and the vlogger explains it:

"My friends [that work at] the Government Palace have told me that during a meeting of Garcia and his ministers, Arturo Woodman - the head of the Peruvian Sports Institute- suggested to the President, that Peru should try to host the next Pan-American Games. But Garcia was "so excited" with the [recent] LAC-EU summit that he started yelling 'Why do we think small, when we can go for the Olympics' and said 'Mister Chirito tell the country that we are going to run for the 2016 Olympics Games bid.' Of course no one went against him nor bothered to find out if that silly plan could be possible. That's how they run this country."

Peru 21 says that eventually, members of the Peruvian International Olympic Committee clarified that the deadline to host the 2016 games had expired last year. So now Garcia is going now for the 2020 bid.

What an international embarrassment.

Oh boy. Where is my Peruvian pride today? Is not in our sports history nor the current president for sure. I just wish one day Peru will become a socialist and nationalist country, and then sports will become a national priority so that every citizen of Peru, will get the chance to use it as a tool for personal development. Even if we never get to host a Olympic game.

# Anonymous Dave says :
29 May, 2008 [ 10:32 ]

Carlos Q. is right. Peru should be socialist and nationalist.

Here's our plan for success;

Nationalize all the banks. Pay the likes of BBVA nothing and put government officials in charge. Open accounts for every Peruvian citizen based on their DNI. Anyone with more than $1000 in their accounts will pay the People's Glorious Progress Tax For Popular Social Change. This will confiscate the remaining sum and distribute it equally amoung the new account holders - i.e. the poor. This money, stolen from the people via capitalism, rightfully belongs to everyone.

Trees and grassy areas in the rich suburbs of Lima will be destroyed. All will be replaced by sand. The rich should learn how it feels.

End trade with the outside world. As nationalists, we realise that Peru doesn't need them. All we need is what the Chilenos stole from us. From increased taxes on the property of the rich we will fund an Armed Forces of the scale we had in the 70's and 80's. Wewill pre-emptively attack and will crush the Chileno aggressors and take back what is ours. Viva Peru! All Peruvians, rich and poor, will be drafted into the army to help spread revolution to the rest of the world.

All food production will be nationalized and people will come to the Government to collect their rations of Papapan. This efficient system will see all the country's population fed equally.

Those Peruvians who are whiter than the correct amount will be imprisoned for the crimes of their forefathers. These descendants of the Spanish must fill a ransom-room with gold to be released.

Foreign investment will be outlawed. These tricks from the dirty gringos make us think 50,000 jobs are created a month, that poverty is decreasing 5% a year, but really they are exploiting us. All foriegn companies, mines etc will be nationalized. We will put locals in charge of the running of these complex entities and profits will be shared with everyone equally, but to Ollanta Humala, a little more equally than everyone else.

Finally, money and trade will be outlawed. This will be simple, as at this stage in the plan no-one in the country will have money or any property to trade. Peru will be free!

# Carlos A. Quiroz says :
29 May, 2008 [ 13:23 ]

Anonymous Dave

Don't exagerate nor change the meaning of a nationalist state. By nationalist I mean a state that looks out for its nationals first before anyone else, like every single developed country does, and I am telling you by experience because I live in the US where no matter if you are naturalized, being born somewhere else, makes a huge difference - not always for the best. In Peru is the opposite. It's a matter of creating a government that has its people as the first priority. All the blah blah blah you wrote is just part of propaganda to promote fear, the same way right-wing politicians manipulate Peruvians, but that's just non sense.