OOC: This thread is for posts related to the upcoming Winter Olympics in Rechtenburg, the capital city of Mordusia. I am out of my depth here and will not be as classy at doing all of this as Masionette was with the previous Olympics, but nevertheless, please bear with me - and all help/suggestions/etc. is appreciated! Please feel free to post news posts, details of competing athletes & so on. Most importantly, have fun!
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May 4386
Countdown begins to Rechtenburg Winter Olympics
The Winter Olympic sports
The Winter Olympics is just a short time away, and the athletes are getting nervous - but the officials involved with planning the whole event are said to be even more nervous still!
Winning the bid to host the Winter Olympics was a great coup for Mordusia, but things got off to a bad start. Frederick Manningham-Buller, a highly controversial and outspoken far-right Mordusian politician, seemed to turn international opinion against Mordusia for the way he accused the previous hosts, Valruzia, of corruption and competition-fixing. The situation then escalated, with Valruzia, Istalia and others threatening to boycott the 4390 games unless a firm assurance was given that Manningham-Buller and his supporters would be banned from the event. Those nations, along with members of the Terran Olympic Committee, also expressed concerns that Mordusia was behind on preparations.
For a while, there was speculation Mordusia would be stripped of its right to host the games, but the Mordusian government and the Mordusian National Olympics Committee worked hard to avoid this eventuality, which was achieved through a mixture of measures, including allocating more funds to the Olympic project, granting the police sweeping powers to prevent suspected extremists from going anywhere near the Olympic stadiums and threatening the Terran Olympic Committee with a compensation suit if it switched the Olympics to another city.
There is an obvious groundswell of excitement about the games all over Mordusia, but this is mixed in with some nervousness about how successfully Rechtenburg will perform under the gaze of the world's media, and also - it would be fair to say - some concern, or even resentment, about aspects of the Olympics they are less pleased about. Economically, times are hard in Mordusia right now, and the government is introducing budget cuts to sensitive parts of the public sector. Some citizens are unhappy that during a time of austerity, so much taxpayers money is being lavished on the Olympics. More particularly, some are angry that the money is being spent in Rechteburg - the capital city - the city which many across the country feel is privileged enough and over-funded enough already.
Civil liberties groups are already loudly complaining about how the police are using their sweeping special powers to ban suspected troublemakers from approaching within 1 mile of any of the stadiums. Some of those targeted with these injunctions are undoubtedly justified - football hooligans, far-right activists who have been in trouble with the law, known hoodlums and so on. But in other cases, it looks like the police may have over-reacted. Numerous claims are appearing in the media of people who say they have received these injunctions, and all they have done is take part in a relatively harmless environmental protest that led to a confrontation with over-zealous police officers, or been arrested for being drunk and disorderly years ago when they were students.
A special effort has been made this year into the organisation of the Opening Ceremony, which will feature celebrities, singers, dancers, actors and other performers from almost every country in Terra. Viewers are likely to be in for a treat, although the ceremony may not be to everybody's taste. Frederick Manningham-Buller has already denounced it as "hideously multicultural" and blasted the organisers for "deliberately prioritising foreign rubbish over all of the great culture Mordusia has to offer".
It has not yet been announced who will be formally opening the Olympics, although the bookies favourite is His Imperial Highness Alexander Steuart-Carmichael.