Illusions, speculation and interests behind the Five Circles

This book was edited by Silvio La Corte, a teacher in sports and educator involved since many years in promoting sports as a fundamental and universal right of human education, and was planned following the designation of Italy (with the cities of Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo) as host country of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

It consists of a rich collection of interventions concerning the most deleterious aspects of the Olympics; unfortunately, those aspects are unfortunately mostly unknown to the majority of public opinion.

The writers of these articles (spokespersons for movements involved in the themes of social justice, urban planning and ecology, university researchers, journalists experts in ecological issues) demonstrate how behind the façade of the sporting event as a "feast of all peoples" hides a wide range of more or less illicit interests ranging from building speculation to the doping business.

In particular, it is highlighted how the structural interventions on urban planning and on the environment, which the Olympic propaganda hype presents as opportunities for greater well-being and improvement of the standard of living for all, actually favor the interests linked to speculation and produce an increase in the socioeconomic gap and irreparable ecological damage.

In urban areas, building speculation, gentrification, privatization of many sports and service structures and destruction of the old social housing structures cause the expulsion and further social isolation of the weaker classes.

In an extra-urban environment, intervention is carried out on the landscape with absolutely unnecessary structural works and the natural areas are devastated without any protection of ecology, environmental health and safety of citizens. All that with the interested complicity of politicians and administrators, and often thanks to a brutal police repression of every opponent.

A first part illustrates the negative evolution of the modern Olympics (from a sporting event to a powerful means of ideological propaganda and a Trojan horse for the most deleterious aspects of capitalism) and is followed by a broad overview dedicated to Italy. Here the authors examine the damage done to the community at the 2006 Winter Games in Turin, and the damage that the interventions underway in view of the 2026 Games are already causing, and it is clearly demonstrated that the only ones who really gain are capitalists and speculators in their service.

A third party analyzes the further devastation caused by this totally business-like approach to the Olympics in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic which, for example, took Japan by surprise in the midst of its ruinous campaign to organize the 2020 Games.

The worst impact that the 2026 Games will have in Italy will be on the mountain environment: then, the book ends with some truly eco-sustainable development plans for the areas in question drawn up by local experts.
This white paper is therefore an almost unique work of its kind, one of the first clear and organized denunciation examples of the structural disease that for decades has corrupted the Olympics and sport in general, namely capitalism in its most aggressive aspects.

Marco Albè

La bolla olimpica - illusioni, speculazioni e interessi dietro i Cinque Cerchi, a cura di Silvio La Corte, Mimesis Edizioni, 2020, pag. 440