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Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
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What city North American city within the last 60 years was the best (or worst) host city for the Winter and Summer Olympic Games? Some discussion points could be best venues, memorable moments in competition, historical aspects, best performing host city, and impacts on the city with growth and infrastructure.
Vancouver - winter 2010
Salt Lake City - winter 2002
Atlanta - summer 1996
Calgary - winter 1988
Los Angeles - summer 1984
Lake Placid - winter 1980
Montreal - summer 1976
Mexico City - summer 1968
Squaw Valley - winter 1960
Vancouver was a terrible location for the Winter Olympics. Not sure how you can pick a host city that barely gets any snow and isn't even that cold. Sochi is even worse.
Squaw Valley and Lake Placid were cool sites from an earlier era of the Winter Games, when they were actually held in a picturesque village right in the mountains. Now more recently you just have them in a city with most of the outdoor events held away in some separate venue in the mountains. The last few ones between Torino and Vancouver have been on the edge of the mountains.
At least Salt Lake City is really close to the mountains though(Park City is practically a suburb) and most years Vancouver's nearby mountains above North Vancouver have snow. I went to the Calgary games as a kid and at least they had ski jumping and bobsled right in the city--the downhill skiing events unfortunately were at a really crappy custom built ski area called Nakiska instead of the bigger places in the Rockies. But now the trend is just have a big enough city that's even a few hours from the mountains. Now we have palm tree fringed Sochi and in the future Barcelona as a possible Winter Games candidate. Lame...
Best US Summer Games? Los Angeles in 1984, it's among the most profitable games, plus it had break dancers and Lionel Richie and a guy in jet pack.
Location: northern Vermont - previously NM, WA, & MA
10,749 posts, read 23,819,647 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Deezus
Squaw Valley and Lake Placid were cool sites from an earlier era of the Winter Games, when they were actually held in a picturesque village right in the mountains.
I spent a winter weekend in Lake Placid back in 2006 to go ski up at Whiteface (largest vertical drop in the East at over 3,000 feet). It had a very intimate feel about it. I got to skate the outdoor speed skating oval right in the center of town. A guy approached me with the coach like demeanor and offered to sell me speed skating lessons. Not sure why I turned that down. The venues are still very visible like the ski jumping ramp. I really loved the place, though hard to imagine the world showing up in this sleepy little Adirondack village.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Deezus
At least Salt Lake City is really close to the mountains though(Park City is practically a suburb) and most years Vancouver's nearby mountains above North Vancouver have snow....
Yes from a pragmatic perspective of the Winter games I think Salt Lake City is a big winner. From the airport its an easy quick shot to the mountain and urban venues. Salt Lake City did a great job upgrading its infrastructure both before and after the games as I-15 is a Houston/LA sized freeway and a very extensive light rail/commuter rail/streetcar system with more mass transit options than many cities twice its size. Salt Lake City has the perfect juxtaposition of mountains and city side by side and a cold enough winter climate to keep venues in tact plus plenty of sunny days and good dry Rocky Mountain powder to boot.
Last edited by Champ le monstre du lac; 02-07-2014 at 11:12 AM..
Easily LA. The only US city to host it twice and once in recent history. They also made the olympics profitable again after Montreal botched it up back in '76.
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