By Tagesspiegel
Next year Azerbaijan will host the European Games and not only them. Tagesspiegel’s article tells how the small country wants to become big by means of sport.
If there is no space, they will construct it. They don’t care what obstacles they will face. Five years ago the Caspian Sea was crashing against the rocks on the site where an event pavilion is standing now. They are building a swimming complex with diving towers, warm-up pools, and all the necessary equipment on land where a small village used to be situated. Baku’s opportunities seem to be unlimited, as well as the dreams of its residents.
Azerbaijan wants to be big and famous, to be significant in the world, to show what it can do, how fabulous it is. What could be a better way to do this than holding a great sporting event? Next year for the first time in history the European Games – a small Olympic Games for one continent – will be held here. Not everybody in the world knows about it. But every resident of Baku knows it very well.
The city is full of banners which state that a certain number of days is left before the Games. “Baku 2015” is the text on a big screen which welcomes you at the airport. The opening ceremony of the European Games will be a day when Baku is in focus of the world and shows the international community how modern and open the city is. At least this is the view of the Minister of Sport of the republic, Azad Ragimov.
Ragimov failed to win the right to host the “real” Olympic Games: Baku’s applications for holding the Olympics in 2016 and 2020 were rejected. But when Azerbaijan wants anything, it gets it. If there is no opportunity, it will create the opportunity, even if a new event should be created for this.
The organizing committee doesn’t hide the fact that there would be no European Olympics if it were not for Azerbaijan, which suggested the idea. Minister Ragimov and Patrick Hickey, the head of the European Olympic Committee, came up with the idea a long time ago. But the Europeans didn’t accept the initiative.
National sporting federations stood against the idea. The competition schedule of their athletes was too busy, while participation in the Games could be too expensive. Germany reacted in the same way. However, when Azerbaijan stated that it would pay for everything – tickets, accommodation, equipment – the attitude suddenly changed. Why not?
“Since 1951 pan-American and Asian Games have been held; the African Games – since 1965. Only Europe has no multi-sport event,” Simon Clegg, the chief of the organizational committee, says. Clegg knows well what he should say. That’s why he was chosen to organize Baku 2015. He dealt with the promotion of the successful London Olympic Games in 2012. Now he wants to “make history” and help hold a European Games which will be absolutely innovative and demand different approaches. Nobody can say what exactly the approaches should be.
Human rights violations? Arrested journalists? It is not about us!
The organizing officials stop talk about violation of human rights in Azerbaijan, the authoritarian government, putting pressure on political opponents and journalists with a couple of phrases. “We will give our response during the European Games. When people come here and see with their own eyes, they will forget about criticism,” Hickey says. He says that Baku is a wonderful city and we should look around and see its progress.
We should admit that Azerbaijan is very good at presenting Baku. The trip from the airport to the city center is a road of glamour and luxury: beautiful houses made of sand-colored stone and glass, expensive hotels, neat gardens and dozens of high-fashion boutiques. One can see three towers which tower over the city, this is the symbol of new Baku. At night they are colored as the national flag or resemble flames. Only when you look far away beyond the horizon can you see what the past of the country was: dirty old buildings from Soviet times are still there. They don’t match the wonderful new world Baku wants to fly in by means of power, force and money. Old buildings are torn down and new houses are constructed instead of them. And stadiums for the European Games are being constructed in the same way. The European Games won’t trouble guests with long distances: except for a canoe channel, the maximum distance between sporting facilities will be 10 km.
The Olympic village is a palace
The Olympic village is situated between them in the city center. However, when you see it for the first time, you can’t imagine this is the village. It is far from classic accommodation for athletes. Decorated columns and glass front and sides. The Olympic village resembles a palace. Gymnasts who lived in the “village” during the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship which was recently held in Baku were impressed by the luxury. According to them, the conditions were better than in London. Such statements are pleasant for the organizing committee. “The athletes who will live in the Olympic village and go to Rio in two years will be unhappy in Brazil,” Patrick Hickey says.
Ahead of the 2016 Summer Olympics Baku wants to hold a sporting event with which Rio cannot compete. Brazil loses in the competition, as there is nothing in the world which Baku cannot offer its guests. According to Minister Ragimov, his country strives to set new organizational parameters: higher, bigger, smarter. Oil and gas millions of dollars make it possible.
Formula-1 to take place in Baku no later than 2016
Obviously, Baku won’t stop at holding the European Games. In 2015 or 2016 the Formula-1 Grand Prix will be held in Baku, as well as the Chess Olympics; in 2017 the Islamic Games are to be held there. Many efforts bring many results. The brightest example of this is the unique football action. When in 2013 it turned out that in the future Azerbaijan would be a sponsor of Atletico Madrid, and its name would be written on the players’ shorts, some thought it was silly. A year after that, the Spanish team played in the final of the Champions League; nobody laughed anymore. The Azerbaijani plan has worked – the small country arrived on the big stage.
The same story applies to Eurovision-2012. The concert hall which was built for the contest in Baku will be used for competitions next year.
The city has a lot of new sporting facilities. One of them is the Olympic stadium, which is situated in front of the Olympic village. 65 thousand spectators will cheer on their favorite athletes at the stadium in 2015. A garden will be built around the stadium.
But what is going on in the country outside Baku? “The Games will have a long-lasting effect on our development,” the minister says. They should encourage regions of the country to catch up with Baku somehow. Azerbaijan is a country where sport is a victory over spirit and body, as the advertisement says. Sport means a lot here: it is a precursor of a better future. And it doesn’t matter how much it costs.
