A BRIEF HISTORY OF DISASTROUS SPORTS EVENTS

Nothing embodies the spirit of international sporting competition, or man's nature in general, more than schadenfreude. Watching another country screw up the organization of their Olympics, Commonwealth, or World Cup is not only hilarious, but it reminds [insert your nationality here] that we really are better than everyone else.

Delhi's Commonwealth games haven't started yet, but it's pretty obvious they're going to fuck it up. So, as we raise a toast to their misfortune, let us remember some of the other great logistical nightmares and financial calamities of the sporting world.

ANTWERP

It wasn't enough that people were getting hosed with hot lead on the fields of Flanders only two years earlier--as further war reparations, Belgium was forced to host the terribly unprofitable Summer Olympics of 1920. These Games are notable as the only time in history where the local Olympic Organizing Committee actually went bankrupt midway through the event, meaning no official reports or medals tables were ever published.

Yes, that really is the mascot

MONTREAL

In 1987, eleven years after the Games, the city slid the final piece of their Olympic stadium's roof into place. Ha! Classic Canada. Also, to pour a little salt in the wound, the roof began to tear a couple of weeks after it was finished, owing to a design flaw.

When they beat both Moscow and Los Angeles to the prize, Montreal's mayor said that "the Olympics could no more make a loss than a man could have a baby." Unfortunately, Junior wouldn't hit theaters until almost two decades later, so Montreal spent thirty years paying off the $1.5 billion tab for its untenanted, unwanted, useless stadium, known semi-officially as the "Big O," but more colloquially as the "Big Owe." Zing!

In 1986, a big chunk of masonry fell off the central tower during an Expos game. Not long after, the entire team was shipped off to DC, permanently. Now many Montrealers want it demolished, but because of the "unique" design, even that isn't possible. It won't implode because of its curvature, so it would have to be taken apart piece-by-piece, a process that would cost $700 million in itself--half of what they paid to create it in the first place.

VANCOUVER

Just let the people look at the fucking flame, OK? They just want to get a good clear line-of-sight for that Olympic Torch. This, the governors of Vancouver's shitty 2010 Winter Games couldn't comprehend. Things got a bit East Berlin when gaggles of people had to observe the Torch from behind a messy wire fence. Ridiculous worries about general safety, as well as the ever-present threat of someone desperate to free Tibet immolating themselves on the sporty flame, led officials to construct the barrier. A guerrilla #takedownthefence campaign was started on Twitter.

The promised snow turned to slush after a warm spell, a Georgian luger died after coming unstuck on a practice run, and at the opening ceremony one of the hydraulic ice totems (which was supposed to re-emerge from the floor) got stuck, leaving Catriona LeMay Doan trapped in her silo, unable to participate alongside Wayne Gretzky, Nancy Greene, and Steve Nash in the "quadruple-lighting of the cauldron."

ATHENS

When the Greeks held the Games in 2004 they built a shiny new subway system and a big stadium in the usual fashion. Nine billion dollars later, Greece had spent 5% of its national income on the Games. You'd think that a program of massive public spending would start some kind of economic boom, but instead of spiking, straight after the games the GDP fell to its lowest level in a decade, setting off the chain of events that would lead to Greece finally calling in the men in pinstripes to rake over its public finances earlier this year. Yes, the Greek debt crisis is all the fault of Greece's greatest export, the Olympics.

EDINBURGH

By 1986, everyone who was anyone was boycotting something. It was the era of Live Aid and we could change the world if we really wanted to. So when 32 of the 56 nations involved in the Commonwealth Games decided to boycott the event over the Thatcher government's soft stance on South Africa, the finances of the event duly turned south when no one wanted to sponsor it. Four million quid in debt even before kick-off, rogue entrepreneur and Fleet Street baron Robert Maxwell announced he would step in to save the games. Clearly, the mild-mannered city councilors who let him in hadn't read his roguish CV. Instead of the £2million he had pledged to contribute, Maxwell ultimately shat out a measly £250,000. Instead of securing new lines of revenue, he just asked all the Games' creditors if they'd settle for half the amount they were owed. That takes a certain genius.

LONDON 2012

Well it hasn't happened yet, but they did manage to cut off the water to half of Hackney for a week. Also, I met some dude working on the stadium the other day who said they just hang around and smoke dope all day. So roll on glorious Olympics!

BOVINE HEINOUS