Less than 2 months to the opening of the winter Olympics in Cortina. Next week we will have the official green flag for the bridge to Sicily. Neither have respected their budgets, timetable or the environment.
The Olympics were meant to be at cost and impact zero. They are prejected to cost 3.5 billion euros and thus far have included levelling ancient woodland, building vip catering facilities on a mountain which has a slow moving landslip, and which has affected the work on a cable car lower down the mountain. Result no VIP club, no cable car, and an existing cable car which doest actually go to where the events are being held. No parking, a new bob sled track which will be immediately mothballed after the games because there are only 5 blokes who bob in Italy and already the projected running costs far outweigh the possible income. In the bid they had promised to revamp the existing track, and then they opted for spending 118 million euros instead on a new one. And don’t forget little of it is actually finished yet. As with the swimming in Rome some years ago, they were filling up the pool as the first spectators arrived. Here it looks like most of the games will take place in a building site. Young Wackford Salvini is weebling around trying to take credit, but he’s on thin Olympic ice. A lot of the projects, they have finally admitted, wont be ready for the Olympics – so various road tunnels, train stations, cable cars, etc will actually be ready around 2030. This is a huge success according to Wackford. Of course there are still unfinished works from the last Olympic in 2006. Finally there is a further question. Is there going to be any snow? There are ‘technical issues’ with producing artificial snow, and even the ice hockey teams are threatening to not play if the ice is not up to scratch. The ice hockey stadium isn’t ready, the rink seems possibly too small – it’s impossible to tell as is’t not finished, and with 7 weeks to go there are no bathrooms, locker rooms, broadcasting facilities, concession stands, and no ice. If we were in China no-one would break a sweat – 25 million workers would finish it overnight, with time to spare. But we’re in Italy and there are 3 blokes available, as long as it doesn’t interfere with mealtimes.
Meanwhile in the south, the high court threw out Young Wackfords plans as they were pretty much uncosted, and had omitted over 90 necessary bits of paper. Undeterred Squeers Salvini pressed on. Ignore the environmental damage, the cost, the antimafia legislation and any professional opinion – this must be built. It’s Salvini’s ballroom – and so next week we will get the official money in the budget released. We can then wait for the first arrests and halt – much like in Salvini’s much adored Washington DC.