Olympics 2012, in Londontown

Not so fast on that medal count...


http://sports.yahoo.com/news/belarus-shot-putter-stripped-olympic-110549755--oly.html

Add a bronze for China and bump up New Zealand and Russia.

 

In fairness to my place of residence, there is one very, very big problem for Boston holding an Olympics beyond our renowned civic cussedness. There's no place to put the Olympic stadium and the other venues you'd have to build like the velodrome, athletes' village, etc. It's a crowded place, and many empty spaces are empty because they're swamp.

 

The IOC doesn't give one shit about uncomfortable summer weather. If it did the Olympics would have never been held in Beijing, Atlanta or Athens.

If you've got the cash, you get the bid. The IOC has all but said it wants the US to host a Summer Olympics soon as possible. NBC would very much like to see it happen as well.

2024 is the first chance. It'll happen even if it's Dallas, Phoenix or Death Valley.

 

The USOC was not viewed favorably by the rest of the IOC. Something about keeping too much of NBC's money.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=oly&id=6884167
I don't know if Chicago realized this when they bid, hence being kind of pissed and vowing never to bid again and a big reason why no US city is still in the running for 2020. The disagreement has since been ironed out, meaning 2024 will be the earliest (and figure a few pro teams will be ready for a new stadium by then) there could be a good chance.

 

Honest question: Which American city is interested in losing billions of dollars?

 

None. Which rules out New York, Chicago or anywhere in California.

Any American city that bids will have to be one that doesn't need to build much in the way of venues, has a major international airport, decent transportation infrastructure and can sell it as a chance to revitalize a shitty part of town (like East London).

 

Orlando

 

Honestly, let's see what happens with the latest world economic crisis. I understand quite a few places in Europe are feeling the pinch and Rome backed out of a bid for 2020 because the government couldn't guarantee to cover everything.

When western Europe and America sneeze, the rest of the world catches cold.

One place that certainly has money is Dubai. But it's far too hot and they really have not shown they care about sports within the Olympic context.

 

How cool would that be to be watching the Winter Olympics in July? You could be kicked back on the deck wearing shorts and watching skiing and bobsledding!

 

As for Atlanta, I have kicked my own ass about two dozen times the last couple of weeks for not going. I was 25 and thought "mehhh, so what" because I guess at that age something that big a few hours away didn't resonate. I even COVERED the dang torch relay when it came through because we had a local guy do a leg. And I still didn't go to the Olympics. That's one of the things where you'd like to get in the way back machine and go slap your younger self up side the head.

 

Plus the NHL wouldn't have to take a two week break in the middle of the season.

Aukland '22!

 

This.

As a native of Atlanta who worked at a small Georgia daily back in 1996, I have a lot of great memories of those Games, from the torch coming through the town where I worked to the one day I got to go into town as a "fan" (attending baseball, handball and boxing the Saturday after the bombing). I hate what Eric Robert Rudolph did in Centennial Olympic Park (a recent "look back' on SI.com absolutely made my blood boil), but a lot of the other criticism seems a little over the top to me. My only real regret, to echo Shoeless Joe, is that I didn't make it to more events, but my boss was the one with the credential (the rest of us had to stay behind to make sure the paper got out). I did make it down to Centennial Olympic Park the last Friday night of the Games, and it was amazing.

Atlanta is not the type of city that would get the Games twice, but that's okay. I'll take a legacy that doesn't include massive amounts of public debt and a landscape dotted with crumbling venues built with no thought of what would come after.

Mark Bradley of the AJC had a nice take on this subject a few days ago: http://blogs.ajc.com/mark-bradley-blog/2012/08/10/atlantas-olympic-legacy-its-there-even-if-not-always-obvious/