The Olympic Games were originally used to bring all countries of the world together: wars were put on hold and differences were temporarily forgotten about as the world tuned in to watch the performance.

However, with the 2014 Sochi Olympics coming up in less than a month, focus is not being trained on unity, but instead on safety. The US military has warships and transport aircraft at the ready, just in case athletes need to get out of the area in a hurry.

How is it that a city is concerned about terrorist attacks and suicide bombings still being allowed to host the Winter Olympics? In the interest of uniting countries worldwide, the main focus should be on the games themselves, not on thoughts of terrorism. The fact that this is even a concern is a red flag that this is not the ideal location to host the largest athletic event worldwide.

We don’t know what egregious oversight led to this particular location being passed through, but it is unacceptable that athletes not only need to be concerned about performance, but also their safety. Regardless of the fact that Sochi officials have pretty much put their entire security force on staff for the Olympics, and the city is all but put on complete lockdown, terrorism threats and suicide bombing lookouts should never be descriptive factors of the host of the Games.

The fact that elected officials, such as President Obama, are refusing to attend should be indicative of concern about the location chosen, and 2014’s error in location selection needs to be kept in mind for upcoming years.