Olympic Games

Is anyone interested/does anyone care?

Apparently London, Paris, New York, Moscow and Madrid are in the final race to host the 2012 Games.

I am so hoping that London does not get it I know, I know! I could be shot for treason but heck, the transport system can't get me to work with minimal trauma on a day to day basis, housing/accomodation is expensive as it is AND, to add insult to injury, Londoners will have to pay a "special tax" towards the Games :evil: (according to the last information I have on this subject which is several months old, I will confess).

I know that Sydney did a great job on the Games but, I don't think hosting the Games is for everyone/city

Orlando, where I live, hosted several World Cup soccer dgames back in 1996, think. My assessment? Not worth it. A lot of inconvenience for the benefits, I think.

I'm kind of rooting for Moscow. They had the games back in 1980 but due to the political climate a number of countries, the US included, boycotted. It would be nice to have it there again, with everyone going.

That would be nice. 8)

i'd like to see the olympics in france.

I like to visit countries just BEFORE they're hosting the Olympics. The city is cleaned up, there are more recognizable signs in English, etc. Prices go up during and after the games, generally speaking, so BEFORE is a better time to hang out. Decided to visit Greece late last summer as it's going to be a mess during the games (and it's usually strike-o-rama anyhow!!!). It was so funny- the locals didn't seem to care less about the games(hey, they've got the economy to worry about right now!) and construction hadn't even started on the stadiums when I left (9/16/03). It will be amazing to see if they if they can pull it off. I hear they will still be cooling the asphalt off the day before the marathon is scheduled to be run!!!

As for me, I will watch the Olympics on cable, from the comfort of my own home. Don't have to worry about terrorism, icky toilets or traffic jams!

Good point. And you always have an excellent view. :wink:

To tell you the truth I don't get really excited about the Olympics, in particular about the competition to host the games. That is just an interesting tidbit for conversation purposes. However, since this is the first time I watch the games after I started dancing I'm interested in knowing what dance events they have. Do they? I know for the winter games they have ice skating and that always blows my breath away. Then for the summer don't they do some sort of water choreography for some event? That's as close to dancing that I can get. Oh, there is the gymnastics thing they do to music too...Anything else, anyone?

I'd probably say based on the fact they chose really big internationally known cities for this particular Olympics cycle... I'm going to guess Paris would be the frontrunner since it hasn't hosted a summer Olympics in almost a century (London is the next oldest but that was 1948). Moscow is 1980, but we'll see whether they'll work on their bid. New York I think has no chance because of the proximity to various other games in North America in the short term (Vancouver hosts the Winter Games in 2010 I think).

But France has hosted the World Cup and several Winter Games before, so I really don't think Paris is going to be out of the question for that competition. Besides, a lot of history in going back to France (Coubertin of course), so it would make some sense to me.

What I was waiting for was a big thread on South Africa hosting the World Cup.

Is it just me, or did the Olympics lose a lot of there awe when they split the summer and winter games and did them every two years?

Back when the Olympics came round every 4 years - it seemed much more of a special occurence.

Scott

To me the Olympics lost a lot of their awe when NBA and NHL players and professional "Grand Slam" level tennis players started playing. Having all these pros in all these sports has led to all other Olympic-recognized sports having pros or de facto pros in them, and I wonder what the point is anymore. On the one hand, it's democratized elite sports because you don't have to be rich to participate any more, but on the other hand it's made everything seem to be about money -- even to the point where I've run into USABDA Championshp-level couples who aren't even National finalists who won't do demonstrations for less than a certain sum of money. What ever happened to giving back? We don't ask you to come tire yourself out by working as a deck captain or ticket-taker all day, so would it be so much trouble to drop your appearance fee and do a show for us once every few years?

Yeah, I know it's kind of weird that I have this attitude because I support the movement to remove the rules and separate amateurs from professionals, but that's because the system is so messed up now that there's no way to fix it and I'd rather have a system that I don't particularly like that works and has understandable rules that everyone can follow than to continue on in a virtual farce.

I, too, thought it was cooler when ALL the Olympics were every four years. The change was made for television purposes -- the US televsion networks pushed hard for the change, and since selling the TV rights to the largest TV market in the world is quite lucrative...well, there you have it. Nowadays, sports are accepted or rejected or even dropped from the Olympic program partly based on their ability to draw a TV audience in general and the US audience in particular.

Money money money money.

spatten said:

Is it just me, or did the Olympics lose a lot of there awe when they split the summer and winter games and did them every two years?

Back when the Olympics came round every 4 years - it seemed much more of a special occurence.

Scott

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It did take a bit of the "mystique" out of the games when they decided to hold them every 2 years, but I believe the main reason they opted to do it this way is so that athletes could participate in both winter AND summer events(you see a lot of speed skaters trying cycling, etc) .

I like the two year change of Summer to Winter Olympics. Technically, if you follow a specific sport, it DOES feature in an Olympics every four years.

Myself, I follow gymnastics and figure skating...thus, it is a four year rotation for each.

I'd like to see Madrid get the games. I couldn't imagine them in either NY or London.

I don't have a problem with the games being opened--for years athletes from the Soviet Union had a major advantage because of the sponsorship they had without being "professional." The games should be about the best of the world's athletes in competition!

Genesius Redux said:

I'd like to see Madrid get the games. I couldn't imagine them in either NY or London.

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NY or London! What a mess that would be, taking the traffic problems into consideration...Surely the construction would go more swiftly than in Athens, though! :?