Quaker2001

IOC president Kirsty Coventry says ICE and Epstein files are ‘sad’ distractions from Winter Olympics I obviously don't have the benefit of an outsider viewpoint, but clearly they're seeing this abroad. Thankfully we're about to get underway and I'm hoping this is like most Olympics where once the games start, that is the focus and the outside distractions become background noise. Although I'll be very curious to see if all this causes a slump in viewership in the United States.

Such a sad state of affairs that probably nothing is going to come of this and we're going to have to live with the stink of it for awhile since those involved probably won't get charged. But I agree that Wasserman can't continue to be the face of LA2028 in light of this. Of course, I feel the same way about the President but we all know nothing is going to happen there and every MAGA will just continue to pretend like nothing happened

Coventry at this point is probably so wrapped up with Milano Cortina that LA2028 is not a priority. 2 months from now though, they will need to address what's happening because they can't ignore all this and brush it aside like they did with China's human rights issues. This is going to be front and center for her and I have no idea what the strategy is. Because I agree with Rob.. as much faith as I have in LA2028 and the USOPC to deliver a great Olympics, I have much less faith in the Trump administration to handle their part of the equation. And the only tiny bit of faith that gives me some comfort is the fact that we'll have the World Cup this summer, so we'll have a little bit of a run through about how to handle a large scale sporting event. The flip side is that come the summer of 2028, Trump is either figuring out how to subvert the constitution and remain in power, or he's throwing his full weight behind whoever the Republican candidate is (maybe Vance or maybe not) and focusing on that presidential campaign, so he's less than fully committed to ruining the Olympics.

BBC Sport to show 450 hours of Winter Olympics

I've had back and forths with a lot of people on social media (because I can't help myself sometimes) including a lot who want the World Cup and Olympics to be giant failures to reflect on Trump. And even some who want American athletes banned from the Milano-Cortina games since that would really bruise Trump's fragile ego. I'm not a fan of that logic. I'm rooting for this event and for the athletes because rooting against them just to make Trump look bad is not going to make him suddenly realize how much of a turd he is. Or teach him a lesson as to how to handle things when instead of soccer teams from 48 countries are here, it's 10,000+ athletes from all over the world who will be here. I don't know if we're going to get another Summer Olympics in my lifetime here, so as much as all the political strife is casting a pall on this event with 2.5 years still to go, I can't in good conscience hope for the World Cup to be a disaster in the hope that maybe the Olympics will benefit as a result. Mostly because I have zero faith in Trump to reverse course on almost anything because he's just that much of a narcissist, but also a bumbling idiot who can't think 5 minutes in front of his face. And that's a really dangerous combination

I would have thought Vancouver 2010 could have considered putting the hockey final at BC Place. It's indoors, they could have had the opening ceremony there and spent the next 2 weeks building the rink. No question whatsoever the would have sold out the place. Could have done "Hockey Night in Canada" for the gold medal game and then reset for the closing ceremony the next night. Nice idea, but probably wouldn't work out due to the ceremonies, especially if they want the hockey final to be held that Sunday afternoon as the last event before the closing

Note that this is only for immigrant visas and wouldn't affect tourist/work/school visas. But certainly not a good look 5 months out from the World Cup

I brought up before the theory of the alternate Olympic timeline where Athens has their act together for 1996 to get those Olympics over Atlanta and how maybe it would have resulted in a New York 2008 Olympics, which would have seemingly been the right time for us. And now there's the Trump alternate timeline if he had won the 2020 election and maybe we'd be done with him now. Although who knows what he would have done in that 2nd term, let alone would it have been a peaceful transfer of power afterwards. I've said for awhile that it's my hope that the Olympics would be largely isolated from all the insanity that the Trump administration is reigning down on the world, but it's getting hard to actually believe that things will go smoothly.

I've been responding to posts on social media reminding people about some of the countries that have hosted World Cups or the Olympics lately, as if they think this is the first time there have been safety concerns with 1 of these big events. But here's the issue that is becoming increasingly apparent. When China had the Olympics in the 2008, they went to great lengths to put on a happy face for the world. And then for the 2022 Olympics, COVID gave them some cover when foreign spectators couldn't attend. Likewise with Russia and Qatar when they both hosted the World Cup, each country rolled out their respective red carpets and welcomed visitors with open arms as if they were supposed to forgot about all the geopolitical issues their countries were involved with. Which is to say they performed a great deal of sportswashing. The United States isn't going to do that. As much as Trump wants to place himself front and center with all things FIFA, they're not going to change their tune that suddenly they want all these foreign visitors to come to the United States. A smarter president would engage in that level of sportswashing knowing how many fans and most importantly, how many media members are coming here from abroad. But Trump isn't that smart and can't see 5 minutes in front of his face. Awhile back, I would have thought he would instruct his ICE goons to tone down the aggression to not create an international incident. I sincerely doubt that's actually going to happen. In the end, I think the World Cup will (hopefully) go off largely without incident. But the problem is that Trump will continue to do what he does best (more like worst) and send a shitstorm of social media posts with no regard to what's going on in the world around him. Which will make it next to impossible to ignore the state of affairs throughout the world the way everyone forgot about the migrant worker deaths in November/December of 2022 because we were too busy watching the beautiful game

I hadn't thought of all this in those terms, but you're absolutely right. And it will be glorious when it happens. Same thing with the G-d awful presidential walk of fame, among other things. Who knows what they can do with this stupid ballroom they're building, but I'm sure whoever the Democrat nominee is in the 2028 election will make that a campaign promise. We can likely count on them to follow through on that one

The footprint of a speed skating oval is a lot larger than most of the events they could put in an exhibition center, so it's not that easy to find a place for it. As noted, Fiera Milano is one of the largest exhibition centers in all of Europe. Only 2 locations in Germany are larger. This is one of the only locations that would be able to make this work

Logistically it could have been done, but it would have been a less than ideal situation for the USOPC to have 2 Olympics so close together and absolutely would have harmed a 2030 Olympics from reaching its full potential. The irony is that Salt Lake was only a few votes from landing the 1998 Winter Olympics which would have come just 18 months after Atlanta `96. Salt Lake's vibe was always "we are looking at 2034, but we're available for 2030 if need be". But the truth is that the USOPC had little interest in 2030 unless the IOC was going to kick in some case like the did with the LA 2028 awarding following their 2034 bid. The sad fact of the matter is that there was no good solution for the IOC having scared off so many potential bidders and not having any faith in the Swedish bid. So the only options were to bite the bullet and go with Salt Lake/Utah for 2030 knowing that was financially inadvisable. Or pray someone would come along to save them for 2030 after initial interest in bids wasn't really there. And they wind up with this somewhat awkward French Alps bid which yes probably won't impress anyone, but having a functional bid is just about all they could hope for. I had said for awhile that it was in the IOC's best interests to hold off Salt Lake until 2034 so they could sell off the next package of TV rights at a higher price knowing there would be an American host city. But the IOC did for 2034 and 2036 what they did for the 6 Olympics running from 2022 through 2032 and sold those to NBC without going to the open market.