11/05/24
June 07, 2005
Paris appears to have taken the lead: in the bid for the 2012 Olympics. The IOC recently took tours of the five finalist cities and released their evaluation report, a nice summary of which can be found in today's Telegraph. With the proposed stadium in Manhattan failing to clear it's final poliitical hurdle for the fourth time, many now contend that this is just a two horse race.
posted by Ufez Jones to other at 10:56 AM - 14 comments
I am so glad the stadium plan in Manhattan is dead. It seems they were trying to ram it down everyone's throat. I might be alone in thinking that the Olympics is a terrible thing to happen to a city. Sure it brings in lots of money, but it costs tons of money. Atlanta used to be this growing Southern city, now it is this awful sprawl with very little character.
posted by bperk at 11:02 AM on June 07, 2005
Atlanta used to be this growing Southern city, now it is this awful sprawl with very little character. Errr, you could make the case that ATL was long passed the growing "Southern" city before the olympics ever hit town.
posted by jmd82 at 11:18 AM on June 07, 2005
Also up for discussion, when the IOC meet in Singapore in early July to officially select the host city, they'll vote, sport-by-sport, and try to settle the long debate on which should be in and which should be out.
That's exactly what the IOC has done -- and for the first time some Summer Games federations are worried about the Olympic future of their sports. At its early July meeting in Singapore, the same session at which the 2012 host city will be chosen, the IOC membership will hold an unprecedented vote, by secret ballot, on the fate of all 28 Summer Olympic sports. Aquatics, in or out? Archery, yea or nay? And so on, through wrestling. A sport will need more than 50% of the votes to remain on the program for 2012; if any sport is voted out, the IOC Executive Board will nominate a replacement from the five sports on the official waiting list: golf, karate, roller sports (road racing on inline skates), rugby (the seven-to-a-side version) and squash. The replacement sport will need two-thirds support to be added to the Olympic family; if it gets that, it will need only a simple majority in a second vote to be added to the 2012 program.
posted by Ufez Jones at 11:23 AM on June 07, 2005
from what I remember, Olympics did Calgary good. the westside stadium was complete horseshit from the start. sorry bloomy, but you're pal is gonna have to get someone else to pay for somewhere else to play. I like the validation vote. Some sports should be axed, and golf seems to be a likely successor.
posted by garfield at 11:48 AM on June 07, 2005
The sprawl in Atlanta has nothing to do with the olympics. The sprawl is the growth. The Olympics actually gave a leg up to certain areas of intown, and we got a pretty decent baseball stadium out of it without fleecing the taxpayers (beyond what the olympics had already done).
posted by trox at 11:54 AM on June 07, 2005
Atlanta used to be this growing Southern city, now it is this awful sprawl with very little character. As someone who hopes to move to atlanta one day here's hoping the whole "atlanta has no character" cliche continues to grow. It's big enough as is.
posted by justgary at 02:15 PM on June 07, 2005
I agree that the Manhattan stadium should not get one penny of public money--that's my opinion pretty much across the board--and further that NYC is a poor location for the Olympics independent of the stadium due to geography and transportation issues. Paris or London, that's somebody else's headache.
posted by billsaysthis at 02:59 PM on June 07, 2005
The Olympics can be good for a host city (Calgary, Lillehammer, and for totally different reasons, L.A.), but it's rare. It's been a decade since the host city didn't take an absolute bath on the games. I too am so glad New York is all but out of it. What did the city have to prove? The world knows where NYC is and what's here, pretty much, so the sales-pitch angle is out. Aside from a land grab for Bruce Ratner and an attempt to move the Jets and the Nets inside the five boroughs, no one here really thought it was a good idea. (Also, the last thing we need here is more fucking tourists in midtown. Ask anyone who lives here.) Paris has held it before, and has most of the stadium stuff ready to go, right? I might even go to that in 2012.
posted by chicobangs at 12:15 AM on June 08, 2005
Paris has held it before, and has most of the stadium stuff ready to go, right? I really hope they don't intend to use stadiums/facilities that were built in 1924.
posted by grum@work at 05:46 AM on June 08, 2005
The stadium caught everyone's attention as the biggest albatross/white elephant, but it wasn't the only such proposed venue. I was curious about where they'd be holding the whitewater events, and when I saw the plan for the proposed Olympic Whitewater Center, I knew that these folks were not doing their homework. Anyone interested in checking out the various venues can find them at the Olympic Map.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 06:54 AM on June 08, 2005
grum, they did have a World Cup not long ago too. They'll have some stuff to put together, but they're way further ahead than New York would be, especially now. My point was, big sporting traffic is not unheard of in Paris. They have much of the infrastructure close to ready to go. In fact, I'd guess that Paris is closer to being ready to go right now than Athens was six months before their games last year.
posted by chicobangs at 10:42 AM on June 08, 2005
My point was, big sporting traffic is not unheard of in Paris. They have much of the infrastructure close to ready to go. In fact, I'd guess that Paris is closer to being ready to go right now than Athens was six months before their games last year. As you say, they already have several important venues. They're also doing a few things differently than New York seems to be: the venues are spread out more, going as far as Marseilles and Nantes, and they're going to be doing quite a few "temporary venues" for various events, which seems like an acknowledgment that Paris probably doesn't need a major competition archery venue on an ongoing basis. And it looks like all their major stadiums are existing venues.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 12:28 PM on June 08, 2005
It's good that they are deciding to put the olympics in a city where it can be afforded. It was pretty sad that the greeks spent all of their money on those games just so they could have them back home. New York is a terrible idea just for the fact that there is nowhere to build. Maybe an outlying city that could use the tourism. Just as long as they don't come to portland I am happy.
posted by YelirNoj at 12:54 PM on June 08, 2005
Also, tip o' the hat to the Sports Economist for about half of those links.