It has been decided that the candidate site to be submitted for
the 2024 Olympic Games will be Boston, MA, according to reports published by
the Boston Globe this Thursday (Arsenault, 2015). This decision raises a number
of concerns among the international audience, chief among them being security.
With the horrific scenes and aftermath associated with the Boston Marathon
Bombing of April, 2013 still fresh in the minds of many American citizens,
local authorities and federal law enforcement will have a fairly large bill to
fill in terms of assuring the safe and orderly execution of the event.
For an
event coordinator, security is at the nexus of the planning process for any
event. Though, few situations offer a more daunting task than policing an event
with the exposure and moving parts present in the granddaddy of all
international sporting events. Other prospect submissions for the 2024 Olympic games
include Rome, Paris, Hamburg/Berlin, Budapest and Istanbul. All of the
submitted locations have their high and low points in terms of how well they
are already outfitted to handle the task of public safety, but the biggest
breath-holding situation of the entire ordeal will no doubt be how well nations
will work in unison with the host country, to ensure those who would look to
disrupt proceedings are not successful.
Additionally,
a recent surge of opposition groups have spoken out against Boston possibly
being the site for the 2024 Games, stating that the event will pose a
significant threat to the state’s progress in fixing prominent issues such as
the economy, housing market and education system. If the economic state of
Brazil during and after the 2014 FIFA World Cup is indicative of a pattern,
these opposition groups may have a point. To this end, Governor Charlie Baker
and other collaborators from local, state, and the federal government would do
well to take these very pertinent concerns to heart in the years ahead, as they
continue to make preparations for 2024. After all, “a house divided against
itself cannot stand.”
