12 days in and the European Games feels more like the Olympics

Day 12, and by now, Baku is beginning to feel less like a European Games and more like an Olympic Games. The steady rush between venues. The dizzy spells. The desperate lack of sleep.

“Sure it will be good training for Rio,” the Sports Editor has been saying, and he’s right about that much. There is only one way to survive this sort of sporting circus and that’s on adrenaline and caffeinated beverages, and if either of those start to run out, it comes down to true grit.

The four-hour time difference between here and Dublin isn’t helping either. That extended deadline is less of a blessing and more of a curse, and by the time the last shuttle bus makes it back to the Media Resort, it’s already well past midnight. After the usual few unwinding doses of Xirdalan (that’s the local beer, not an illicit drug) it’s almost time to go at it again.

There is definitely an Olympic feel about the place too, right down to the designated traffic lanes – about 50km in and out of Baku – identified by the good old five-ringed symbol. The shuttle buses run on time too, even when they’re mostly empty. With the price of diesel here at about 55 cent per litre, they can afford to. Each bus also gets its own police escort, although that’s to help ensure the drivers don’t go too fast rather than fall behind schedule

Censorship

The city’s four million inhabitants (not far off half of Azerbaijani’s entire population of about 9.4 million) can’t help but feel like they’re part of something big as well, especially when it feels to me as if half of them are working as Games volunteers. Not that they’d be speaking out very loud against the Games even if they wanted to: the Protect Journalists committee now ranks

Azerbaijan

the fifth most censored country in the world; the World Press index ranks it 162nd out of 180 countries.

There's some proper old- school propaganda going on here, too, and here's proof of it: one of my articles from last week – under the headline "All that glitters not gold in ambitious Baku" – was lifted by one of the national news agencies News.Az and turned into something a little different. They praised "The Irish Times, an Irish daily broadsheet newspaper" for its article on Baku, quoting my observation that "Azerbaijan is transforming itself at breakneck speed, and is simply taking sporting events like this one along for the ride" and that we also noted "the wonderful work (that) has so far been done in Azerbaijan's capital".

This was the same article that contained my observation that these Games came against the “backdrop of continuing repression against anyone who speaks out against the government’s flood of oil and gas money that is effectively running the entire show” but News.Az neglected to mention that.

Anyway, every billboard, every street hoarding, every lamp post and every other inch of advertising space (buses, taxis, etc) are completely illuminated by the blue and yellow signs and symbols of these European Games, and according to the dogs on the street, Baku has never been so prosperous. In 2002, there was a 12-hour queue for a loaf of bread. These days, everywhere looks like the Celtic Tiger on steroids.

Of course there is one big difference between these Games and the Olympics: no one outside of Azerbaijan seems to be bothered about them. Or so I’m hearing anyway. It’s very easy to feel like you’re part of something big inside the Kingdom of Baku, and very easy to forget that it’s not big at all outside of it. This was always likely to be the case, at least for the first of these Games, although it’s still too soon to know how the event can grow, or at what pace.

National broadcasters

It definitely won’t grow without attracting more national broadcasters (oh brothers, where art thou?), nor without ensuring a greater spread of Olympic events, and indeed qualification towards those Olympic events. The need for a proper track and field competition has already been well discussed although no one seems sure how to go about that either. Because the European Athletics Championships – and indeed the European Swimming Championships – are going nowhere, at least not for now. They’ve already reinforced their scheduling of events from 2018 onwards, and whatever form these European Games take in 2019, it is unlikely athletics and swimming will have fully bought in by then.

What is certain is that European Olympic Committee (EOC) president, Pat Hickey, the man who turned the idea of these Games into a reality, won't be short of ideas, or indeed host nations. Russia, Turkey, Belarus, and Poland have all made preliminary inquiries about hosting the 2019 Games, although the plan was always to debrief after Baku, before opening the bidding process for the next one.

For most of the Irish athletes in Baku, it must also be beginning to feel less like a European Games and more like an Olympic Games. Not many of them, outside of the boxers, have been exposed to this scale of event, and that can only be good training for Rio, too. Indeed the Olympic Council of Ireland (OCI) have also been treating Baku as a sort of dress rehearsal for Rio. Their entire executive committee have been invited out for the experience too, including second vice-president John Delaney (leaving his FAI hat at home, presumably), while the Irish Sports Council are strongly represented in Baku too, including their CEO, John Treacy.

Olympic bid

There is definitely the feeling that Baku will continue its rapid development long after these European Games leave town on Sunday. With that begins the more pertinent question of how soon this place will truly feel like it can bid for the Olympic Games. Maybe all this will be good training not just for Rio, but also for 2024.