Low cost Tromsø Olympics compared to Sochi 2014
In Norway there is a heated public debate whether its worth to spend 2,5 billion EUR on the 2018 Winter Olympics in Tromsø or not. No matter what the Norwegians decide, the expenses will be peanuts compared to the budget for the Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014.
The South-Russian City Sochi has already been awarded the Winter Olympics for 2014, while Tromsø is one of the applicants for the 2018 Winter Olympics.The largest city in Northern Norway has all its plans for the arrangement ready, but before they can hand in their application to the IOC the government must decide whether they will give a state guarantee to cover the costs of the Olympics or not.
Recently it became clear that the budget estimates for Tromsø 2018 were too low. The costs of a Tromsø Winter Olympics will be 2,5 billion EUR instead of the previus estimated 1,9 billion EUR. This led to a new heated debate between the Olympic supporters and the Olympic opponents in Norway.
The Moscow correspondent of the Norwegian newspaper Nordlys compares in a commentary the differences between the Norwegian and Russian debate about the expenses. Compared to the budget for the Sochi 2014-games, the budget for Tromsø 2018 almost can be regarded as change. The Nordlys correspondent means that the Norwegian debate appears as lack of understanding Olympics as anything else than a mayor money consumption, while Russians have a broader perspective on this matter.
The Sochi-games in the Caucasus Region had an original budget of 9,2 billion EUR. Recently the Russian Auditor-General said that they now have to double the budget to more than 18 billion EUR. That’s more than seven times the estimated costs of the Tromsø-games. In Norway a budget overrun like this would normally lead to Government crisis and that the entire head of organization were forced out of their positions.
According to the Nordlys-reporter that is not the case in Russia.
– The Russian authorities regard the Olympics as a possibility to invest in a region which is in need of an economic lift to cope in the future. For Russians the Olympics is about establishing a tourist industry in Sochi and building a good infrastructure in a region which has been neglected for a long time, the correspondent writes.
