hufus

Canberra is kind of notorious for lacking accommodation, though. You'd have to build a good few thousand hotel rooms, and you'd have to build them in a way that many could later be sold as apartments... although then there'd be a glut of apartments then There is a significant number of on-campus rooms between UC/ANU/ADFA (about 3,500) which could do the job if they'd be acceptable, but while you could get away with that for a YWOG, not sure about an Olympics.

Melbourne would be in revolt if Sydney got a second games before us. It's political poison for any Australian government that supports such a travesty ------------- Perth for me is a better choice than Brisbane, but neither is a good choice. Maybe by the time 2044 rolls around that will have changed, but for me I'd like to see another Australian games in my lifetime, and that realistically means Melbourne.

I do think there should be a city that is on permanent standby for 3 olympiads, which is awarded by having every sporting federation have their world championships (or *a* world championships, like U17s or whatever for FIFA), so that if a city is as dangerously underprepared as many have been, the standby city can host. Obviously, Melbourne would be an excellent choice for the 2016-2024 standby city

I don't like the execution for Cardiff, it's a bit *too* abstract for me. But I love the idea. It gets my vote

The only Australian city close to able to host the Winter games is Canberra, and even that's a big, big ask. While the nights can get quite cold (certainly, below zero at night for the duration of the games would be possible), there is very rarely snow and even less often, snow cover. The mountains aren't exactly close, there's nowhere near enough accommodation, and the venues built would have questionable legacy value unless Australia really pushed the idea of becoming a hub for off-season training. Even a Youth WOG would be a stretch, although it's a stretch I'd love to see the AOC take. NZ is a much better possibility for a YWOG, in Otago (Dunedin/Queenstown). Santiago could host a great WOG (hell, it could host a great SOG too... hey everyone who remembers the robbed Santiago bid in the competition last year...), but it wouldn't really be on the cards either, which is a shame. Another option is Bariloche, which again, would host a great games (although relatively 'Boutique'), but Argentina's economy is a lot shakier than Chile's, and it has all the other problems that the Southern Hemisphere has. It's not fair, but it's the truth - unless nobody up north wants them, or the IOC makes a conscious decision to host them in the Southern Hemisphere and declines bids from the north, it simply won't occur. Give Bariloche or Otago a YWOG and celebrate that much, fellow southern hemisphereans ------------------------------------------ Just as an aside, Melbourne is actually not an awful choice for a youth WOG either. It's slightly further from useable snowfields, but it does have the benefits of being an international city and could more or less handle the new venues without them becoming white elephants, at least relative to Canberra. It also has the hotel rooms, strong hosting pedigree across various sporting events, and the local population would snap up tickets pretty well.

Spain's credibility is in the toilet, which is a real shame because the Spanish people are amazing. But all CNN or Al Jazeera or the BBC needs to say is "25% unemployment" and everyone in the world automatically assumes Spain is a basketcase. I'd've supported bids for events like the UCI Worlds, but the Olympics just isn't the right fit for the country at this time, particularly when it is a country still in the first tier of recent hosts.

I'd suggest Chengdu. China is really trying to make it the inland capital and third prominent city, with currently all attention being focussed very much on the coast and particularly in the greater Beijing region, greater Shanghai region, and Hong Kong. Chengdu has some experience in hosting major events and probably has the necessary infrastructure, and as they did with Beijing, China will only bid for the advertising, rather than the love of sport or the festival. They need a message to sell to bother, and I suspect the message that could most easily be sent by an Olympics in China is that it has not just Beijing and Shanghai, or even Hong Kong, but 4 major centres. As far as the Winter Olympics go, I suspect they might put in a bid and probably win it, but it wouldn't be a major priority.

I was last in BsAs in February, just after CFdeK was re-inaugurated, the mood was better than 2006, but still tense, especially about the Falklands.

I've been to the flower, for such a big city it really does have a stunning lack of landmarks. The Caminito doesn't really fit at all, they couldn't choose the Bombonera, the Obelisco looks just like another twenty city's versions, and you can't really base a logo on a cemetery. I'd have just gone with the sun from the Argentinean flag, unaltered, with a nouveau-classical font underneath.

I really like the logo, and I expect it to be incredible versatile, forming the glyphs for sports, directional arrows, the shape of icons etc. The look being used in things like that Athletics sheet is safe and not overly distinctive, but does a good job of not being as offensive to the eye as London's was. I'm expecting a lot of deep yellow vs blue play, with flashes of Green and a lot of blank space. As far as the official font goes...I really dislike it. It doesn't represent Brazil to me, it's difficult to read, and although it's distinctive, it isn't as memorable as London's.

Melbourne and Victoria have plenty of stadiums with sizeable capacity. The loss of the MCG would be difficult to handle, particularly in relation to the finals season, but I suspect the MCC wouldn't mind, and a bit of creative fixturing could see stadiums like Whitten Oval, Coburg City, and Princes Park used efficiently, as well as some regional venues. We have a very small chance of bidding successfully, despite being a city eminently capable of hosting an Olympics, and our best bet of hosting a games soon might be as the emergency backup for a failed hosting. I think it would be in Melbourne's interests to build that water course to ensure we're truly ready at the (relative) drop of the hat to host the games in a 6-month time-frame, instead of a 6 year time-frame - the only other cities that could do it would be London, Beijing and Sydney, and in all but London's case, probably at a lesser level. Melbourne needs to be an assumed future host. As we have done for the last decade, Melbourne should continue to host many and varied major events in Sport, to ensure our name is well known to all sports federations and that we are thought of fondly. Melbourne needs to become an assumed host, not just the best city for the distant future. We need the SFs, IOC, media and money to assume we'll have an Olympics, and that we're truly in the first rank of next hosts. Rather than actually bidding and getting shot down, we ought to spend a decade and change talking about how we are getting ready for the bid, and constantly including mentions of our future bid when talking about world championships in Gymnastics, or swimming, or even Archery; when we hold the Australian Open, Melbourne Cup, F1... the people of Melbourne and Australia need to assume we'll bid, and when we do, that we'll win. Hopefully we can convince the rest of the world of it too, and see Melbourne 2036/40.