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Fascinating delusional summary there Galactic, but neither San Fran nor DC nor LA were better choices. San Fran is such a small tight city that most of any games that would take place there would have had to be staged in San Jose. In fact, that would not have been a bad idea (San Jose 2028?). DC would not have been a popular choice because it is too politically charged, despite how Obama has "transformed" the country and LA is a bad choice because it's simply done it too many times.
Boston was a serious consideration for the IOC because their plan was to transform the Olympics back down to a manageable size economically. This opinion came from actual members of the IOC.
If Boston had put it's best foot forward, it had a solid chance.
The S.F. Olympic plans had most of the games take place in the East Bay or San Jose, both accessible by commuter rail and BART. Obviously it's a small city that wouldn't hold all the game within the technical city limits. We don't need to go over the whole "Bay Area is connected" thing again, that's been done to death in these forums.
I agree that LA is a bad choice for originality, but the city has transformed dramatically over the years. And D.C. is political? No more political than Beijing is, and it's with secure federal funding. The opposition in Boston made it the obvious least-likely choice. The IOC says all kinds of things, but at the end of the day, they want the first African country. That's pretty clear. USOC knows they have to put a city up for the games, even with a minimal chance of being chosen.
I'll eat my words if they re-propose Boston for the next games, I'm pretty doubtful though.
The S.F. Olympic plans had most of the games take place in the East Bay or San Jose, both accessible by commuter rail and BART. Obviously it's a small city that wouldn't hold all the game within the technical city limits. We don't need to go over the whole "Bay Area is connected" thing again, that's been done to death in these forums.
I agree that LA is a bad choice for originality, but the city has transformed dramatically over the years. And D.C. is political? No more political than Beijing is, and it's with secure federal funding. The opposition in Boston made it the obvious least-likely choice. The IOC says all kinds of things, but at the end of the day, they want the first African country. That's pretty clear. USOC knows they have to put a city up for the games, even with a minimal chance of being chosen.
I'll eat my words if they re-propose Boston for the next games, I'm pretty doubtful though.
Is there some type of a mandate that says the USOC has to put a formal bid in? The USOC opted not to bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.
Agreed...so the US has hosted 3 times in 34 occurrences - hardly an overrepresentation. We only have to look at Western Europe for that.
Not sure this argument really flies for a number of reasons
Even with a 3 times in 34 that would technically be an overrepresentation by the number of countries there are, the number of larger regions that have or have not been represented (in which case, Canada and possibly Mexico's Olympics should probably be counted), or total population size.
However, why would it be 3 times out of 34 if the argument is that the first few Olympics, including the one in St. Louis, should not count? If you're taking away from the numerator, then you should be taking away from the denominator as well. If you want to pick an arbitrary start for the modern level, then maybe we can do post WWI/Great War which brings you 3 out of 24 games that have taken place have been hosted in in the United States.
And yes, Western Europe is overrepresented--stated as such in my first post. The US, Western Europe, and Australia are overrepresented.
Now regardless of whether you personally feel this way or not, this is likely what the selection committee is operating on. If it's a region/country that hasn't hosted before and can prove it has the sufficient resources to do so, that process does go in its favor.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 07-28-2015 at 04:34 PM..
What on Earth are you talking about?!?! You couldn't watch the London Olympics without being assaulted by the Union Jack. Don't even get me started on the obnoxious nationalistic display that was the opening ceremony.
We get it, you despise this nation.
You are correct. It was all England. Which was great, why not its the flavor of the games.
On another note: Most countries are not capable or suitable to host an event like that. It would be fun to see San Francisco or New York host.
Not sure this argument really flies for a number of reasons
Even with a 3 times in 34 that would technically be an overrepresentation by the number of countries there are, the number of larger regions that have or have not been represented (in which case, Canada and possibly Mexico's Olympics should probably be counted), or total population size.
However, why would it be 3 times out of 34 if the argument is that the first few Olympics, including the one in St. Louis, should not count? If you're taking away from the numerator, then you should be taking away from the denominator as well. If you want to pick an arbitrary start for the modern level, then maybe we can do post WWI/Great War which brings you 3 out of 24 games that have taken place have been hosted in in the United States.
And yes, Western Europe is overrepresented--stated as such in my first post. The US, Western Europe, and Australia are overrepresented.
Now regardless of whether you personally feel this way or not, this is likely what the selection committee is operating on. If it's a region/country that hasn't hosted before and can prove it has the sufficient resources to do so, that process does go in its favor.
I'm not sure how you can even mention the US and Australia in the same breath with Western Europe, when the latter has hosted 15 but the first two have only hosted a total of 6. And I wasn't the one who discounted the early Games, but simply went along with it. I would count all of them back to 1896.
I think the amount of participation, money, and sponsors should count for something - and the US is the largest in all categories yet has only hosted 4 times. You can paint it in other ways (number of countries) but there are only a handful of countries that are able to host due to finances or unrest. So you have to consider which countries are fit to host, not the total number of countries.
What on Earth are you talking about?!?! You couldn't watch the London Olympics without being assaulted by the Union Jack. Don't even get me started on the obnoxious nationalistic display that was the opening ceremony.
We get it, you despise this nation.
You can't even have a discussion with that guy...he is ridiculous in his hate for the US. It would be funny if the US completely pulled out of the Olympics, both financially and on a participation level. It wouldn't have nearly the luster it has now. But yeah, let's punish the US for having shows that reflect our patriotism and culture (just like every other country does). How stupid.
You can't even have a discussion with that guy...he is ridiculous in his hate for the US. It would be funny if the US completely pulled out of the Olympics, both financially and on a participation level. It wouldn't have nearly the luster it has now. But yeah, let's punish the US for having shows that reflect our patriotism and culture (just like every other country does). How stupid.
The S.F. Olympic plans had most of the games take place in the East Bay or San Jose, both accessible by commuter rail and BART. Obviously it's a small city that wouldn't hold all the game within the technical city limits. We don't need to go over the whole "Bay Area is connected" thing again, that's been done to death in these forums.
I agree that LA is a bad choice for originality, but the city has transformed dramatically over the years. And D.C. is political? No more political than Beijing is, and it's with secure federal funding. The opposition in Boston made it the obvious least-likely choice. The IOC says all kinds of things, but at the end of the day, they want the first African country. That's pretty clear. USOC knows they have to put a city up for the games, even with a minimal chance of being chosen.
I'll eat my words if they re-propose Boston for the next games, I'm pretty doubtful though.
There were several problems with Boston's bid. The first was that the populace was not asked what they thought about it, no politician ever brought it up or anything like that. These business people wrote up a proposal for the games and we were chosen, it was a shock.
The second was that we just got through the worst winter in memory where our infrastructure (Subway system, roads) failed us.
The third was that after it was announced, people demanded to see all the costs that would be associated with it and the first thing we saw was all the plum jobs being handed out to connected a-holes, including a job that would pay our d-bag former governor 7,500/day as Boston's Olympic ambassador.
And fourth, we were sold the Big Dig over 20 years ago on the basis that it would cost 2.5 billion dollars, it cost 20 billion.
It tool Montreal 30 years to pay off their Olympic debt and Europe is struggling to pay the debt Athens rang up when they hosted.
It tool Montreal 30 years to pay off their Olympic debt and Europe is struggling to pay the debt Athens rang up when they hosted.
I think Boston could have followed the LA model and come out with a profit much the way Atlanta did...Montreal was a financial disaster and Athens had many problems, mainly unused venues afterwards that were huge money pits. It seems like the main problem with Boston was blind opposition. Maybe it was warranted, maybe it wasn't, but it doesn't seem like a lot of those in opposition ever gave it a chance.
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