Brekkie Boy

Of course he is but for UK Athletics I can't really see the justification now that Birmingham has been revamped - I doubt the one Diamond League event a year pays that bill. Obviously a shame in terms of whether it would then be available for any future London Olympic Games but it's probably not a done deal that it would be used in the way it was in 2012 anyway given the downsizing since. And it's very rare "legacy" plans seems to include the possibility of reusing venues in a future Olympic bid.

Whilst I'd prefer Sapporo with the talk of Nagano hosting at least the sliding events was there ever any move for Nagano to bid in their own right - surely their legacy from 1998 is more intact than those of Sapporo from 50 years ago?

Gutting but not surprising that this has once again come to nothing. Guess North America it is then.

God, that really is **** and doesn't even reflect the route NBC usually take with such things. If it isn't some kind of shield featuring the Eiffel Tower I'd be surprised.

Given what a disaster the crowd control for the Stade de France was for the Champions League Final you have to wonder if the French organisers saw that coming and thought the venue unsuitable for handling not just the crowd but also the athletes arriving too.

Backing up to the North v London debate I actually think although I'm sure the politicians of the North would like a chance with London 2012 being so fresh in the memory most Brits would rather see another games in the capital and those venues largely reused than a multi-billion pound building programme in the North. Have to wonder too after the success of this weekends Jubilee Concert whether a future opening ceremony on the Mall might be considered if Paris somewhat starts a trend of non-stadium openers.

Regardless of the argument on there being more interested cities in the old-norm or the new-norm I think one thing is absolutely clear - there wasn't just one interested city in the 2032 games - or 2028 for that matter too. It's just other cities were never given the clear opportunity to put their case forward.

So this weekends Diamond League took place at the renovated Alexander Stadium. Certainly an improvement, but won't be winning any awards I suspect.

Triggered much AustraliaFan? Key personnel of failed and forgotten 40 year old Brisbane bid changes bidding process and games are then awarded to Brisbane four years ahead of usual time frame just looks so honest doesn't it. A shame really that Brisbane Games will always be tainted by that question however good they are - and as much as I believe it's a good thing to see the Olympics embracing smaller regional cities rather than just the worlds megacities I just don't believe under the familar process they'd have got close to winning. Yes, some would say that is entirely the point but when a process lets transparency the questions will always be asked, even if it was all absolutely above board. The main reason though there are seemingly so many cities interested in 2036 is that many were completely blindsided by the awarding of the 2032 games before they had a chance to open a dialogue of their own. The Olympics shouldn't be awarded on a first come, first serve, basis.

The solution to alleged corruption isn't taking the process behind closed doors so any possible corruption is even less transparent to the wider world. Yes, the process needed changing but as I've said before an election where you have just one candidate on the ballot paper is not a free and fair election - it's what dictatorships pass off as democracy.

What's the point though when it'll just be a secret deal behind closed doors again. They need to return to a fully transparent voting process rather than just seemingly invite corruption as the norm.

Top of the list for the "legacy" of the games should be the ability to stage the games again. Always thought that should happen in the 2040s. 2036 feels too early with only Paris as the other European host in the period between when there are so many other cities who deserve a shot.

Just hope they don't get the weather Manchester had back in 2002.

Absolutely. I think NZ hosting would actually revitalise the games in a way yet another games in Australia can never achieve. Problem is somebody has to pay for it. I don't know if cricket has any Olympic ambitions but if they do this is the best place to showcase the sport. The difficulty though I think is with it already being predominantly a Commonwealth sport the ICC effectively gifting an international event to the games in what is already an overcrowded international schedule is not something that makes much financial sense.

No surprise this is now confirmed. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2022/apr/12/regional-victoria-announced-as-host-of-2026-commonwealth-games Not exactly enthused by it - a shame we've got to a situation where it needs to return to Australia after just 8 years. The regional concept is interesting, though that is kind of what the Gold Coast was and that for me was the most underwhelming games in many years. In terms of international appeal centering the games around Melbourne would be an easy win, but I get why they've gone for the regional approach to sell it more to locals and perhaps sell Victoria as a whole internationally too. It also perhaps provides a new model for the games moving forward of them being city or country based - I know when Wales last looked into hosting they considered North Wales, South Wales and All Wales options.

Can't see BGRS having a chance at the World Cup if they have no chance at the Euros. I would hope the Russia bid gets nowhere near the vote stage - needs to be immediately thrown out. Turkey does deserve it's shot and I think the stadia are pretty much in place there from what I can see too. The one country bid also works in their favour IMO, however open UEFA say they are to joint bids.

P.S. Not really a fan of expanding it again to 32 teams as it basically makes the qualifying process largely redundant when more qualify than don't, but in practical terms it just add 12 group games, taking the tournament from 51 matches to 63.

Seen reports of a joint bid from Bulgaria/Romania/Serbia/Greece too. No surprise some of the British press got ahead of itself. You would hope a Russian bid is thrown out immediately, though you never know with UEFA. Ideally they'd get all this sorted before bids for the 2030 World Cup had to be submitted but that doesn't look ot be the case, and suspect the potential 5 year turnaround may benefit the British bid which will mainly be around existing stadia.

Would be nice to see a one-off Home Nations tournament revival to determine who qualifies automatically. As for how games are split it would be nice to see England get two groups and the others one each, but NI is probably going to only have one suitable stadium so it means that isn't quite so straight forward. The reality is too that Scotland, Wales and Ireland will likely have to centre their involvement around one city, though with two stadia. However there would be alot to said from a fans and environmental perspective of groups being staged in one city - I really thought that's how Euro 2020 should have been done once covid became a factor rather than games being thousands of miles apart, so I suspect it'll be a case of England contributing at least half the venues, with one or two in each of the remaining nations - and groups not restricted geographically to one area. I would guess the second round will see one match in each of the Celtic nations and four in England, then NI dropped for the QF round with one in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. Wembley seems to be assumed to get the final as the biggest venue. Whether they repeat the Euro model and have the semis there too or instead use probably Croke Park and the Millennium Stadium as the two biggest non-English venues remains to be seen. All that is assuming they keep to 24 teams. Wouldn't really want to see it expand to 32 as that just narrows down potential future hosts further, though I think multi-country hosts will become increasingly the norm.

So wish Singapore would step up for the Commonwealth Games - if they can manage the Youth Olympics they could manage that, though I'm guessing the event doesn't resonate with the public enough to justify it.

Just the few minutes building up to the Six Nations finale tonight showed what an amazing venue the Stade de France would be for the ceremonies and how well they'd do them, so a shame we won't see it centre stage for the Olympic Ceremonies. Guess whatever they do for the Rugby World Cup will be the closest we get.

One more tick for Munich then. Not sure the Arena Civica looks suitable to adapt for Milan though due to it's historic nature and the max length of the oval slightly exceeding that of a track.

Thanks for collating all this info. Still some organisations who need to up their games - FINA yet to withdraw the World Shortcourse Champs due to take place in Russia later in the year. Also FISU were slow to move on excluding Russian and Belarusan athletes from this years Universiade which saw at least three nations as of yesterday (Britain, New Zealand, Canada), pull out of this years event, citing concerns over that and covid protocols too. They have now today banned the athletes from this year but are yet to withdraw next years summer games from Russia. https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1120404/bucs-chendgu-2021-withdrawal-fisu-games https://www.insidethegames.biz/index.php/articles/1120472/fisu-russia-belarus-ban-end-of-2022

Interesting - was only pondering to myself a couple of weeks ago whether a skating oval would fit in an athletics stadium. The problem of course is since the 90s the requirement has been for the oval to be covered, but actually wonder if going open air could actually renew a bit of interest in the long track variant of the sport. Always makes me laugh how they throw so many on to the tiny short track rink at a time yet generally speaking limit it to two at a time on the massive speed skating ovals. The Oval though does seem to be the main barrier when it comes to indoor venues for bidding cities. Most big cities will likely have adequate venues, or at least future plans for venues, for the more conventionally sized ice rinks and hockey rinks, but a space bigger enough for a speed skating oval can be a costly white elevant, and as much as keeping it as an oval ticks the sporting legacy box practically it's probably better for the space to be broken down into smaller venues following the games.

I think that sort of information fatixxx, although related to some reports is due to being unable to meet some Human Rights guarantees, is better behind a link than posted in detail within the thread. It's not conducive to a flowing discussion. Will be interesting to see how games are split. I do think environmental considerations need to be higher than they have been in recent times and a return to groups being based across two stadia. Obviously Euro 2020 kind of saw that, just with stadia hundreds of miles apart. Northern Ireland likely limited to one stadium means it's probably not going to be two groups in England and one in each of the other nations, but Dublin, Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and London could all provide two Euros' ready stadia with minimum investment if they really did see the benefit of a six city approach rather than spreading the games for the sake of spreading the games.