Jump to content

Leaderboard

Popular Content

Showing content with the highest reputation on 07/04/2020 in all areas

  1. The French have this proclivity to do strange things with their ceremonies. And they like to do outdoor/"theatre in the streets." 1. weird Albertville 1992 ceremonies 2. Med Games 1993 - held lakeside, or by a beach in Languedoc-Rosillon. (There's a partial clip of that on UTube.) 3. this FIFA 1998 World Cup 4. Jeux de la Francophonie 2013 in Nice when the OC was held at the Place Messina (the public square) in Nice. I hope they don't f*ck up 2024 with their weirdness. Oh, well, Cirque du Soleil just filed for bankruptcy becuz all their shows in Vegas closed -- and of course NO TOURING shows either.
    1 point
  2. Turning a speed skating oval into a public ice skating venue worked for Vancouver and I agree it's not a an exorbitant amount of taxpayer money to spend but I'd argue Vancouver is a winter sports city, way more than Milan. I could see Milan trying the same thing but how much use would it actually get? Pine Mountain in Michigan regular hosts the Continental Cup? How much use to ski jumps actually get though if they are not part of the regular FIS calendar? Nansen in New Hampshire is on the national register of historic places. Speaking of Canada, Calgary couldn't even find the funding the rebuild their ski jumps for their failed 2026 bid and had to use Whistler instead. Interesting you mentioned Bakke Hill Ski Jump. I had a student about a year ago create a mock Seattle WOGs bid for a class project and one of his proposals was to rebuild Bakke Hill. His plan also included the sliding track at Whistler and a speed skating oval that would become a community ice skating rink.
    1 point
  3. They certainly aren't cheap, but ski jumps don't require artificial refrigeration (unless Qatar wants to build one) and huge support infrastructure. You also only need a pair of $500 skis to go ski jumping compared to $50,000 for a bobsled. Speed skating ovals are relatively easy to operate as public ice skating venues and can even be easily converted to other uses as at Vancouver. A $100,000 per annum government subsidy for a public ice skating venue isn't a crazy use of public money. I am certainly not suggesting that building facilities for ice skating or skiing is cheap. But I personally wouldn't mind paying tax dollars to rebuild the Bakke Hill ski jump at Leavenworth in Washington State even without an Olympic bid, whereas I would be seriously annoyed if my state built a bobsledding track with public money. There are private commercial ski jumps in New Hampshire and Michigan that operate without any connection to an Olympic bid. Unfortunately I kind of agree, which is why I said "if". But I certainly think there's at least a chance that the Italian plan will work out OK financially. Milan is a lot bigger than Gangneung and Italians are more interested in winter sports than Koreans.
    1 point
  4. You are reading way too much into this. This is all a matter of circumstance and coincidence than any sort of effort to have history play out like this. When you say "the USA wanting to go back to hosting".. no, the USA has always wanted to host these events. They put in a bid for literally every Summer Olympics between 1944 and 1984. Took a break after that and bid for 1996, which of course they won. Took another break and bid for 2012. There has always been a "want," but the IOC doesn't always want to come here. Don't just look at the times the United States has hosted these events as the only times they have *wanted* to host these events. When I used the word "attraction," it's not about the United States and various cities being interested so much as the country's ability to actually bring those events here. And obviously that's going to be based on recent history where if they have hosted an Olympics or a World Cup in recent memory, they shouldn't expect to see another one for a while. In that regard, 1996 is a big exception, but look at what has been discussed here as the "what if Atlanta doesn't get 1996" alternate history. Maybe Salt Lake gets the `98 Olympics then. Maybe New York is properly timed to get either 2008 or 2012. Now all of a sudden these events are all much more spaced out. Either way, especially when looking at the Olympics and the World Cup, 1 has absolutely nothing to do with the other. The Winter Olympics and Summer Olympics are certainly tied together. In short.. how history has played out (and will play out) has absolutely nothing to do with American culture or global image or anything like that. All a matter of timing and it just happened to work out that 2026 and 2028 will see a World Cup and an Olympics here, with another Olympics probably not too far behind.
    1 point
×
×
  • Create New...