jimjam

argh!!! I missed voting. Ah well - I will be here for the 2nd semi and maybe the final too for a little chat and laugh (in a good way of course!).

As for my votes; well they wouldn't have gone to Sweden - but I won't say where they would have gone as the voting lines for the Gamesbids ESC (in association with CAF) have now sadly closed.

I'll join - CAF - you know I'm a Eurovision slut. (amongst other things!!)

Interesting discussion - a few points I would like to add

1- Much of the conversation here is that Greece is too small to host the games. Maybe it is the other way around and the IOC insist that in order for a city to be successful in their bid they have to deliver a games that is too big (expensive). Would it really make a difference if the games were a lot smaller in scale and cost? Maybe we would have so many fancy venues, so many IOC lanes blah blah etc but we would still have the sport. Maybe the IOC needs to change its view on how a host country accommodates the games and allows more flexibility.

2 - In a similar vein lets look at the costs in the bid books and compare them to reality. The IOC should be more accountable for performing due diligence on the costs that bidding cities provide. London has tripled its budget from that proposed in the original bid. Athens was about twice the cost (some down to bad planning - but much due to the costs being too low in the original estimate). The IOC needs to stop with the vanity project and be more realistic. Not every games needs to be Beijing!

3 - With all that said the games contributed such a small amount to the total of the financial problem in Greece. It is maybe a good scapegoat but I'm not sure it really makes that much difference to the financial reforms Greece is going through.

Wasn't there some other guy on here a few years ago who was obsessing about a games in MSP?
Or is this the same person?

Personally I'd love the game sto go to smaller / lesser known cities - but its never going to MSP. Not in its current format. When you have cities like London, Paris, Rome, Rio, Tokyo either hosting or wanting to host a city like MSP won't stand a chance.

Atlanta got really lucky with their 1996 bid and even Atlanta has more to offer than MSP.

RobH, on 16 July 2011 - 04:09 PM, said:

RobH - thanks for the links. I do hope that they stick to their budgets now and through 2012. Certainly LOCOG can't complain about not recieving enough from ticket sales (even if this is only a small part of the overall budget!).