Memorial To Past Events

Look closely 

Out with the old doesn’t quite work sometimes.  As in Olympics, for instance.  The citizens pay for great stadiums, dormitories, and all the structures that it takes to present the olympics.  Lately is has been found that the events did not make enough income to pay for building them.  When the olympics finish,  the area is deserted.  

You probably were not born yet, so you have to rely on an old person like me to tell you the story.  Italy hosted the Winter Olympics back in 1956 in Cortina.

Participating were Thirty-two nations which competed in the four sports and twenty-four events.   The Soviet Union made its first appearance in the Winter Olympics and  won more medals than any nation.  Since television in places like Germany and Scandinavia did not have the technology to show the events live, people there had to rely on Communist television sources, a big plus for the Soviets.

I was a kid then and had no clue of this.  Pretty much all I remember is the big ski jump and watching those men slooshing down and jumping off that structure.  I could not imagine how any person could have the courage to do that.   One mistake and you are toast!  

We were driving past Cortina a few years ago and suddenly I saw that ski jump on the right side of the road, sitting peacefully in a meadow like setting.  I looked harder and could see that parts were missing,  No one was going to be using that for practice.  It just sits there as a reminder of the past.  Knowing Italy as I do now, how they recycle things, I wondered why they haven’t torn it down and used the lumber.  

I have read where this Olympics was paid for mostly by private means, not by the citizens who paid only for refurbishing the structures.  I am not sure this is how it is done today.  It should be.  

Coming up, Kradow, Budapest and Turkey.

Ciao!