Another Take: The Olympic host city hangover
The Take
Al Jazeera
4.7 • 748 Ratings
🗓️ 10 August 2024
⏱️ 22 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Every Saturday, we revisit a story from the archives. This originally aired on August 9, 2021. None of the dates, titles, or other references from that time have been changed.
Another Olympics has come and gone. And as the athletes and sponsors leave town, Tokyo could be left to deal with the debt, gentrification, and displacement that can come from hosting the games. In this episode, we look at the social cost of hosting sporting events and the activists fighting to keep the Olympics out of their hometowns.
In this episode:
- Christopher Gaffney (@geostadia), associate professor at New York University
- Theresa Williamson (@greencities), executive director of Catalytic Communities (@CatComm)
- Jonny Coleman of @NOlympicsLA
Episode credits:
This episode was updated by Tamara Khandaker. The original production team was Priyanka Tilve, Negin Owliaei, Dina Kesbeh, Alexandra Locke, Amy Walters, Ney Alvarez, Tom Fenton, and our host, Kevin Hirten, in for Malika Bilal.
Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik. Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.
Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.
Connect with us:
@AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Threads and YouTube
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Al Jazeera Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | Hi, I'm Tamara Ken Dacker, a producer with the take coming to you with another take, where we look back at stories from our archives. |
| 0:19.7 | This week, we're looking at a story that might feel familiar to you if you've ever lived |
| 0:24.9 | in a city that's hosted the Olympics. |
| 0:28.1 | After the years of preparation and the excitement of the games, there's the hangover. |
| 0:34.7 | Ahead of the Paris Olympics, there were already concerns about issues like the impact on housing |
| 0:40.3 | affordability, unhoused people being moved to other French cities, and unofficial businesses |
| 0:46.7 | like booksellers being cleared off the streets. As the games wrap up and the athletes and |
| 0:53.6 | media leave, it's the residents of the city who are going to have to deal with the aftermath. |
| 1:00.5 | Back in 2021, we looked at how the Olympics were felt in Tokyo and in other host cities to see if the residents of these cities ever really feel any benefits. |
| 1:12.8 | The original episode aired August 9th, 2021. |
| 1:17.1 | All of the references are from that time. |
| 1:35.3 | I'm going to... Another Olympics have come and gone. With so much incredible athleticism and camaraderie on display, it can be hard not to get wrapped up in the moment. |
| 1:41.3 | Here they come to the wall! |
| 1:43.3 | Like when Tunisian swimmer Ahmed Ahmed Hafnawi, went from worst to first. |
| 1:49.0 | Surprising everyone, even himself. |
| 1:53.0 | Some athletes made history for their countries. |
| 1:55.0 | Haedilin Diaz is the first Filipino to ever win an Olympic gold medal. |
| 2:00.0 | And who could forget this one? |
| 2:01.6 | The Italian and Katari high jumpers, two friends, chose to share a goal rather than compete |
| 2:06.6 | in another jump-up. |
| 2:08.6 | And they will both taste gold in Tokyo. |
... |
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