79 replies to this topic

[intoronto1125]

Sir Rols, on 23 February 2012 - 12:03 AM, said:

One thing you have to remember mate is the Winter Games have a far smaller pool of potential hosts that are physically and geographically capable of hosting. Not to mention there's not the same spread of success and tradition in winter sports as their is for summer sports around the world. I think sporting tradition isn't as important for winter hosts as it is for the SOGs - the IOC can't be too picky is they want new regions or countries for the WOGs to go to (heaven help us - we wouldn't want them to go to frickin' Canada every second edition! ).

Canada, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Ukraine, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, Switzerland, Austria, Italy etc. are all hosts

That is a lifetime of hosts right there.

[Rols O'Bertilsson]

intoronto1125, on 23 February 2012 - 12:06 AM, said:

Canada, USA, Germany, France, Spain, Ukraine, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Japan, South Korea, China, Switzerland, Austria, Italy etc. are all hosts

That is a lifetime of hosts right there.

But out of that list, only four are "new frontiers". The rest are "been there, done that".

[intoronto1125]

Sir Rols, on 23 February 2012 - 12:13 AM, said:

But out of that list, only four are "new frontiers". The rest are "been there, done that".

lets say those 4 host and mixed in with enough former hosts it still gives Bulgaria a chance to develop.

[Rols O'Bertilsson]

Yeah, well, Sofia's been competitive in the past. I'm sure if I was an IOC member, I wouldn't be the only one who'd be more than ken to go to them before, say, Canada again so soon.

[intoronto1125]

Sir Rols, on 23 February 2012 - 12:51 AM, said:

Yeah, well, Sofia's been competitive in the past. I'm sure if I was an IOC member, I wouldn't be the only one who'd be more than ken to go to them before, say, Canada again so soon.

I don't think a Canadian winter games are due for another 30-40 years. So lets say in 20 years Sofia bids, has won constantly Olympic medals why not go there?

[Rols O'Bertilsson]

Anything can happen, but if they were serious, I wouldn't think they'd have to wait 20 years. I could imagine them being competitive for 2022 if they put their mind to it.

[baron-pierreIV]

intoronto1125, on 22 February 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

"And Sofia probably could've ended up with the 1992 Winter Games had it not been for JAS' finagling of that year's vote sessions to get Paris out of the way for the Summer Olympics in favor for his hometown Olympic Games." Can you explain that lol wasn't aware of that.

JAS jere-rigged the voting order in 1986 and ordered the Barcelona supporters to vote for Albertville, France in the winter race so Paris would get knocked out of the summer race, thereby allowing Barcelona to sail easily to victory. (This is fully explained in Chapter 4 of my book.) Without the manipulation of JAS, Sofia was the strongest winter candidate going into the voting, held its own at 25-28 votes throughout, and in the end, still managed to stay second with 25 votes. But JAS force-fed Albertville's victory even though it was technically one of the weakest bids just to sideswipe Paris. So, Sofia and Paris were the real victims of JAS' blatant bias and shameless scheming to favor his hometown of Barcelona. This is what happens in self-appointing, personality-centric fiefdoms like the IOC, FIFA and the IAAF.

Edited by baron-pierreIV, 23 February 2012 - 11:28 AM.

[intoronto1125]

Interesting to say the least!

[kernowboy]

A Polish bid based on Zakopane/Krakow is the most likely.

Poland with a population of 40million is big enough to hold any games whether summer or winter.

Krakow with a population of 750,000 is big enough to be a host, with facilities such as the new Krakow Arena holding 15,000 amongst others. It has a modern football stadium to hold the ceremonies and has a history of successful indoor sports teams like Wisla Krakow and Craicova Krakow to use any facilities post games. There is also potential at secondary sites such as Nowy Targ, a small town with a leading domestic ice hockey team which is on the way to Zakopane, 100km from Krakow

With the exception of a sliding track, Zakopane has all of the outdoor facilities and has previously held Nordic and Biathalon World Championships and Universidades. Unfortunately the last one in 2001 was afflicted by freakish hot weather at the last moment which plagued havoc with the alpine events. It does however have a vertical of 929m.

There would be a need to update infrastructure but Poland have been investing billions in this issue and this continues to be ongoing.

Krakow is not one of the hosts for Euro2012 so there would be no objection to extra money being spent there. Generally it was the Ukranians who let the bid down with their delays - the Poles were on schedule.

Overall resorts in Eastern Europe have improved massively due to the significant increase in people from Western Europe being prepared to try the far cheaper resorts in areas such as Bulgaria, Slovakia and Poland.

And with 7 years being winning the bid and hosting the games, realistically there would be no problems at all with Krakow/Zakopane meeting all the requirements if the bid plan was solid.

The Carpathian Mountains (the 2nd longest in Europe after the Scandinavian range) have never hosted the Olympics - Sarajevo was in the Dinaric Alps, Sochi in the Caucasus - so the Poles could justifiably say that the IOC would be taking the games to a new frontier.

[szaasz]

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