Quaker2001

As you like to say even more than I do.. good for Texas, Greece, and Rome. None of those places are in the running to host an Olympics, so who cares what the temperature is there as opposed to Budapest, speaking of a city that might some day have Olympic aspirations. Climate change has put more of a focus on extreme weather, and events like wildfires have become more common. But still, it's not like extreme heat is something new. It's certainly something that OOC's are going to be more aware of and likely plan for. It's not something where in the near term the IOC is going to have to re-think the calendar. We know why FIFA did what they did with the World Cup in Qatar. Would they actually do that? FIFA handed the rights to the 2026 World Cup to Fox on a silver platter as a "we're sorry, please don't sue us" make up for Qatar and that's without a specific timeline to stick to. You're right, there are plenty of reasons the IOC doesn't want to do business with Qatar. The calendar is more than just a convenient excuse though. It's a bad business decision on the part of the IOC for that reason. They have a specific time window for a reason. At this point, it's not some sort of general guideline they'll easily toss aside. For the Winter Olympics, yes. For the Summer Olympics? Didn't seem like much of a challenge when they awarded Brisbane 2032 well ahead of schedule without a contest. We may poke fun at AF for all the "interested cities" discussion, but there's probably a serious candidate out there who will absolutely go in that July-August window, even if that's not necessarily their first preference. Your original premise is that the IOC is going to have to consider going outside of their preferred window to find a candidate. "later on" and "pretty soon" is not exactly the next cycle or 2. It's probably a couple of decades down the road. Highs were in the 90s in Atlanta throughout much of the Olympics in 1996. Dealing with heat is not something the Olympics and other sports events are new to. Would it be better weather-wise to have the World Cup in the fall? Sure. But that's bad for business and for TV (not to mention it conflicts with NFL season when all the stadiums won't be available). So they'll play it in July, despite the weather. Why? Because it's good for business. And FIFA isn't going to make the same dumb move twice.

We noticed. There's a world athletics championships going on right now in Budapest. Extremely hot and humid, but the event is still going on. Would they still hold the event if it were to "get worse"? You know they would. They did move it elsewhere on the calendar 1 year to accommodate Doha. The 2025 event in Tokyo is in September. But they're flexible that way. The IOC has shown very little interest in recent years to be flexible and why should they be? Sure, some places are not suitable to host an even like the Olympics in July and August. Speaking of Doha, for all the times they've pursued the Olympics, has the IOC ever seriously entertained the notion of putting it in September or October for their benefit? Not really, and why should they have to. How many times over have we said that all the IOC needs is for 1 city/country to give them what they want and they're good to go. Yes, we know that's becoming a problem on the winter side of things, although there's no calendar fix that would solve that issue. Might it happen someday on the summer side? Perhaps, but that's not an imminent danger. Not with all those "interested cities" we know are out there for 2036! As for United 2026.. I'm sure the citizens of Texas appreciate your concern for their safety, but you probably forgot that both stadiums there are climate controlled. So the heat will not be something the teams or the spectators have to deal with

The IOC is still first and foremost a business. If they get the most money in conjunction with the media rights holders and the sports federations by insisting on that window, it's going to continue. If we get to the point where we can't have major sports events in the summer because of climate change, then we have much more serious problems on this planet.

Any responsible organizing committee will have contingency plans for foreseeable situations (as opposed to a once-in-a-century pandemic). I doubt they'll suddenly realize that a major weather event is something they need to be concerned about. I'm sure it was already under consideration

Had a bloke come up to me in a pub in Sydney and asked what I thought about the players not singing the anthem. Told him I absolutely didn't care, then looked around at the group I was with to try and shut the conversation down because he wasn't worth engaging with. As much as Megan Rapinoe has brought on herself over the years, even she doesn't deserve the lasting image of her at a World Cup to be missing that penalty and for every MAGA out there who couldn't otherwise care less about the sport of soccer suddenly having an opinion about her mentality. It goes without saying that the USWNT under-performed in the group stage. Only scored 3 on Vietnam, probably should have been more. Maybe could have beaten the Netherlands, but they're a good side. And obviously couldn't get a goal against Portugal. As a result, they face a group winner in Sweden rather than a 2nd place finisher which would have been South Africa. If their round of 16 opponent was Switzerland or Colombia or maybe even France or Japan, the effort they put in against Sweden probably gets them through to the quarterfinal. Instead, they faced a keeper that had the game of her life and get unlucky when the last Sweden penalty literally goes the tiniest margin possible over the line. I think the fact that the US went in as the tournament favorites was less about them being the best team and not having any other standouts in the field. Yes, it's extremely disappointing that the record says they lost in the round of 16. Winning 3 world cups in a row is extremely difficult. Regroup and reset and now focus on Paris next summer and work on getting back to glory there for the first time in 12 years

There have been 8 World Cups prior to this won. The USWNT have won 4 and never placed lower than 3rd. Eventually there was going to come a time that didn't happen. And the loss that put them out was a 7 round penalty shootout against the #3 ranked team in the world. Yea, they probably could have and should have done better. Injuries hurt and Vlatko probably had to go. But can we stop framing this as some sort of historical failure of ineptitude? As if it's our birthright to win this tournament and anything less than that requires an over-reaction? If they had lost the Portugal game - and we know how close that was to happening - then that's a discussion. Instead, they got a tough draw in the round of 16, a matchup that could have been a final, and that was it.

That's the problem with the news cycle these days that the IOC is so desperate for anyone to acknowledge their plea for a 2030 host that the slightest indication of interest will seem like more than it is. Not the first time we've seen either a business interest exploring the idea or an NOC floating that headline to see what public reaction will be. Sadly, it doesn't get us much closer to all those entities coming together to back a bid. Sweden I trust could put something together for 2030 because they can pick up from where 2026 left off to make that happen. Switzerland can't pull this one out of thin air to create this whole country-wide bid when it's something they have never planned and proposed before. If they're looking at the future, the IOC I'm sure will be intrigued. But I think they have to know that 2030 is too soon to make it work.

Exactly, it's just NBC promotion for whoever they can grab. I doubt this time next year we'll see either of them. And by then, more of the focus can be on the athletes, where it's deserved

And yet you were soooo sure that this would be settled by this time next summer in Paris. You kept telling us the timeline that the IOC planned to go with when the truth is that there was no timeline and the IOC is going to sail wherever the wind blows them because it's increasingly evident their only move is to react as the situation plays out. You're right that the new norm allows them to be flexible, but let's be honest about what's going on here. This is less about the success of the IOC's new way of selecting host cities and more about their inability to find one for 2030 and lock it in. They had a city they liked for 2032, so they wasted little time in making that announcement much earlier than they needed to. This is not the same thing. Normally I might argue with you further, but can't today because I'm in your city and I'm going to be spending the day exploring..

So much for that timeline to elect a host you were telling us all about.

That's the first I'm hearing of this. Which is a little odd considering I'm in Auckland right now (I got here yesterday, the day after the shooting)

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Perhaps the IOC did a smart thing by talking about future hosts and rotations if nothing else to engage with more countries that may or may not be interested in the near term. And it gives them an opportunity to say "any interest in 2030?" This effort from France seems much less likely to materialize than what we're getting from Sweden. Clearly though the IOC wants to know there's a future for them in Europe (especially with the issues facing Milano-Cortina), so it makes sense to engage with whoever they can talk to at this point, even if nothing is likely to come of it

So I've noticed in the last however many years I've been posting on this site.

We've seen this play out before. Someone with a business interest makes a statement and then someone else in a position with more power says "nope, it's not happening." I remember that happened with NYC when 2024 bids were on the table for the USOPC.

Yes, it is notable. If we're going to have these discussions in real time (or else what is this site for) than in the moment, let's acknowledge that there's news about a Games bid. We can do that while at the same time take the news for what it means.. an effort that's probably not going to get anywhere. No one said that news like this had to be taken seriously. Although I say that on a site where 1 mention of China instantly becomes I guess that means Shanghai 2036.

Given the state of unrest in France right now and the fact they're about to host an Olympics, I'm not sure how well it will go over to say they're going to do another one. Let alone the last minute nature of this which makes it really difficult to believe this will get anywhere

I agree. But this is GamesBids, so when news like this comes up, it's notable. Even if a month from now the whole idea never amounted to anything. If there's something substantive that's worthy of discussion (like with Sweden, far easier said than done), the IOC should listen. Again, we don't know what they have to offer. At least with this as opposed to China, we know it's targeted at 2030 and it's coming direct from the source, despite the fact that source probably doesn't speak as officially as they want to believe

Yes, I want to hear more about this too so we can evaluate how far along they are since this came completely out of nowhere. Could be nothing more than a pipe dream as the Tour de France is headed through the alps that someone thought of this. But like you said, the IOC needs to listen to nearly any proposal on the table for 2030. So hopefully this materializes into something, even though the odds of that happening are probably really slim

Well now, what have we here... France officials eye bid for 2030 Winter Olympics, Paralympics

There's a strong likelihood that Thomas Bach is no longer the president of the IOC when they select a 2036 host. Wouldn't start booking those plane tickets to Shanghai just yet and assume this is a done deal just because they're in the conversation

And you think I'm being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian. So typical FYI. I see we're all about air quotes and parenthesis now. Yea, I stand by "zero chance" because I think there is zero chance of this happening. I have a feeling you also believe that, but you're just trying to be wishy-washy. And contrarian I didn't say the IOC wouldn't acknowledge the possibility. What I said was that if they did consider it, they would realize it's a terrible idea. Doing your best AF and playing the "but the new norm" card doesn't strengthen your argument here. As much as you want to make the narrative that the IOC can and will do things we're not expecting - and there's a lot of truth to that - there is a limit to the things the won't actually do. This IMHO is one of them. They sure did, but that's the world having a short attention span. Plus they have a new issue to deal with in the form of Russia. How quickly do you think the world would remember those 2022 games and all the sportswashing that took place? Come 2036 (and we're still some time off before those games get awarded), that's more time in between. Plus it's a Summer Olympics, not a Winter Olympics, so that would make a big difference in terms of returning to China. It would actually be the same 14 years that we had between Beijing 2008 and Beijing 2022. I'm sorry, I must have you confused with another poster. I could have sworn you were the person in another thread who looked at the list of interested parties and clapped back about how many of them were non-starters. So no, it's not about options on the table. It's about *viable* options. Is Harbin a viable option? Sure. Do I think there's any scenario where Harbin 2030 is preferable to Salt Lake 2030? Absolutely not. As much as we're talking about the IOC exhausting every avenue before they go with that option, there are certain alternatives that simply aren't attractive enough when there is a back-up plan. In 2022, there was no back-up plan. Pick Beijing or Almaty or you might not have an Olympics. Whereas here, it's pick Sweden or.. you do have a back-up plan. Is that plan more shaky than awarding a 2nd Olympics in less than a decade to a human rights-abusing regime that much of the world will be turned off by? Forget for a second how the IOC feels about dictatorships.. is going to China better than whatever it might cost to get Salt Lake on board? We're in a holding pattern because of Sweden. Not because of China. If Sweden announced they were no longer pursuing a bid, then you bet I think the IOC could announce almost immediately they're going with Salt Lake. You're right, I did make that stink before some posters here thought it was anything more than a minor inconvenience. If Sweden is there - and I still believe the IOC should do anything and everything to make this work for them, even though they're probably not going to - then they've got it. That's a viable alternative. Harbin? Even if they wanted to put together a plan for 2030, which it doesn't seem like they're doing, the IOC might think about it, but I believe they're going to think it's a bad idea and they're better off with Salt Lake. And you know me well enough to know that I stand 100% behind that narrative. Not just offering it up because you disagree. It's really hypocritical of you to go in 1 thread and talk about cities as non-starters and then come here and say there are no non-starters, the IOC needs to consider every possibility before they offer 2030 to Salt Lake. And to say "well, the IOC does whatever the hell they want, so you can't dismiss anything" is not strengthening the argument. As much as we can't count on the IOC to make decisions that are in their best interests, they're not complete idiots. Having China in the mix in some form of future rotation is a possibility they need to acknowledge. Putting 2030 in Harbin is something they might think about, but they're not going to think about it long because it's a horrendous idea.

No argument there. China is definitely going to be in discussions about future Olympics, whether it's 2036 with Shanghai or whenever with Harbin. Whether or not the IOC actually goes to some sort of rotating host pool or whatever they might be looking it, I'm sure China wants to make sure they're a part of that conversation. No, that's not my perception. I'm not against parallels. I'm against dumb, pointless parallels that provide no context. To answer that first question, as another poster once put it.. "they’re not always known for making the most rational of decisions" We're less than 18 months on from an Olympics held in China that didn't exactly go over so well with the rest of the world. Part of that was due to the pandemic, but the IOC needs to assess the world view of China and decide whether or not they want to return there for a 3rd time. 2008 was supposed to be a new China that wasn't as authoritarian as the perception gave them. 2022 proved that did not happen. We know it's a massive market with a ton of money that the IOC probably can't ignore. You ask why Bach is "inviting" (thanks for the air quotes) China? Because he wants options. And you're right, at some point they'll probably get another one. The IOC needs to think long and hard about that if they're going to make that decision though. This feels like the first time in a long time that the Olympics doesn't have an authoritarian host on the calendar for the future. If they're going to break that string, then yes, that might make it difficult to drop the perception that they like warming up to dictatorships. And I'll continue to call it a dumb comparison, but you do you. There's no "may be" here. SLC *is* the IOC's back-up plan. You're right, that only happens if all other avenues have been exhausted. And yet.. we're precariously close to that being the case, especially if Sweden doesn't have their act together, which is obviously a very distinct possibility. In which case the IOC has no choice and what everyone would "prefer" no longer matters. Because to reiterate, since it seems that it needs to be said, beggars can't be choosers. And right now, the IOC is very much in the begging stage. Which is NOT like what happened in 2022 when they were left with 2 unappealing options, but they weren't begging. We know what happened when Norway dropped out. Contrast that with here where yes, they could just swallow their pride and say Salt Lake as an available option, but they didn't do that. It was more "let's wait until year and see if we can will a city into bidding." Which they can do in the new norm, as a certain someone likes to remind us.

Harbin isn't just "less than ideal." They're a complete non-starter for 2030, IMO. If they're the only city at the conversation table - I believe Rob's reporting that says they might be talking to the IOC, but I doubt it's about 2030), then the IOC is still going to tell them no and go with Salt Lake. This isn't a matter of capable. This is about the IOC salvaging their reputation. If that requires concessions and eating a massive amount crow, that's still a preferable option to returning China. It's a really dumb comparison to make (and you know how I feel about comparisons ) to say nobody saw Beijing coming and look at this through that lens. 2022 started out with seemed like several good options. In the end, it was down to the giant douche or the turd sandwich. That's all they were left with. As opposed to here.. they have Salt Lake. They don't want to use Salt Lake, but the alternative to that isn't anyone else at the conversation table. How many times before have we said that the IOC can't will a city into bidding? What's happening with Stockholm right now is probably largely out of their control, but that was largely Sweden's decision to make the attempt. We'll see how that plays out. Much like the IOC can't go to Japan or Canada and say "can you please bid for 2030 to save our asses," they can't do that with China. Even if they could, why would they? That's not a place the IOC is going to want to go. They have a backup plan. It's one they're trying to avoid, but it's an acceptable outcome, even if it's far less than ideal

What happened to beggars can't be chooser? Because the IOC is begging right now. And as much as it would help their cause to find someone else for 2030 other than SLC, I wouldn't frame it as them trying to do everything in their power. I think in typical IOC fashion, they're just sitting back hoping things will work out. If they don't, they'll try and spin it that everything is all good. We all know SLC is better served for 2034, but we can be darn sure the narrative for a SLC 2030 games will be how it's a safe and reliable host and who cares that it was a complete and total lack of option that got them there. Not trying to stop it. Just trying to be realistic. Again, doing so with the caveat that the IOC can and will make incredibly dumb decisions. I can't see Harbin 2030. And don't think the latest news means we need to take that possibility that seriously

That's the problem with the whole "interested parties" concept, especially as it pertains here, is that it's very non-specific about what these parties are interested in. If the IOC is engaged with countries about possible future hosting, that's a separate story from 2030. Switzerland may be in the conversation for the future, but they're not in the conversation for 2030. If they were, we would know by now. We're not at the beginning of the 2022 bid race. We're at what should have been the end. As we all know, 2022 wound up being a choice between a giant douche and a turd sandwich. That was all they were left with after everyone dropped out. Will the IOC consider an advance from Harbin specifically for 2030? They might, but I can't see a scenario where they, unpredictable and irrational as they might be, could ever decide that China is the solution to their problems and say that's a better option than Salt Lake. Of course, I say that as they continue to kowtow to Russia. Either way, their LAST and most desperate option is Salt Lake City. I still don't think we can look at this and think that literally any other city that puts themselves forward is a preferred option. That all said, we don't even know if Harbin's specific interest is for 2030.