yoshi

Couldn’t they just call it Italia 2026? Opening the prospect of national bids could help get Europe back in. Although to be honest it’s getting to the stage where the Winter Olympic concept itself looks toxic

Still think if Canada wants 26, they should choose Vancouver. I know it’s only a 16 year gap but Innsbruck was less & with the way the competition is looking, I suspect the IOC would bite their arm off. As the thread title says - Calgary feels risky at the moment.

Plus the IOC might’ve leant on them to do this as a way to make the Winters viable again. Make it national & you can effectively decouple the indoor & outdoor ‘halves’ of the games, enabling more existing infrastructure to be used. With this there’s nothing stopping say, France staging mountain events round Albertville & indoor ones in Lyon or even Paris. (Talking of Albertville, wouldn’t their bobsleigh track be nearer Milan/Turin than Cortina? If they want to be really different).

Not really sure why Turin would need Milan involved, since they only had the full games themselves 20 years before. It’s like Vancouver saying they need Calgary. Quite apart from the fact that Milan is gonna host the IOC session where 2026 will be awarded (!).

I must admit I’ve always thought that a bit silly. There must be some route that could keep the iconic Tyne Bridge shot & run the length of Grey Street at least.

Of course the Euros concept could be a threat to the Olympics if the world federations decide to follow the Europeans & create a combined event of their own. The irony being that such a 'World Championships' would probably find it easier to attract bidders due to not having the IOC's arguably politically toxic brand...

Although it hasn't got a right lot of attention on here, the European Championships have been taking place in Glasgow & Berlin (they ended yesterday), & it seems that despite some apprehension about the new combined event, it has been a successful start. Now, I've only dipped in & out of the coverage of the event but it's seemed to have been well-received by the athletes themselves, & from what I saw, to have attracted good crowds in both Glasgow & Berlin, as well as the better, wider coverage that comes from using the main EBU broadcasters. But the main thing that struck me is how, despite being held in two cities/nations hundreds of miles apart, the Championships still felt like a seamless - & crucially, single & unified - event. So, bearing in mind the well-documented problems that the IOC are having attracting bidders for the Olympics, is the solution to the problem of manageability, both summer & winter, to split them in half, European-style? (Hamburg - who aborted their own Olympic bid - seem keen on the Euros, so it's doing something right) Obviously the cities would need to be relatively close for timezones etc but if a bi-national multi-sport event can work on principle, how big a leap is it to Olympics in, say, Toronto AND Boston or winters in the Swiss Alps and Munich or Milan? Both sharing and spreading the load - is this an avenue worth investigating for the IOC?

Not the people behind the handover?

Hehehe, thought they'd been quiet for a while. Might have to get one of them in the morning :p

This may seem silly but with a venue plan like that, would they be better served with a straight Vancouver bid? I know it's only 16 years but 2010 was a hugely successful games & since it'll probably only be up against Erzurum...the IOC have surely already learned that beggars can't be choosers.

So that's why the 64 games were in October... Always seemed odd looking at the historic dates, but it makes sense if this is a common thing (if not this extreme)

After 62 matches, we have finally almost arrived at the biggest match on the planet, the 21st World Cup final. Before that, today, we have England playing Belgium in a pretty meaningless game. Again. Saturday: England v Belgium (third place game) And then the decider, the favourites against the debutants - but after this tournament, anything is possible. Preceded by a closing ceremony involving... Will Smith, among others. Sunday: France v Croatia (FINAL) Who do you think will win?

Oh well, guess it's not coming home :p They've made a great base for the next Euro & the Q*t*r cycle though. Croatia outplayed us in the second half & ET, & I love that a country half the size of London has reached the World Cup final. I know France are favourite but I wouldn't write Croatia off, they do not know when they're beaten.

France sneak through on paper - worrying bit for England & Croatia is that it would've been a rout if Giroud knew what a goal was.

We are almost at the end of Russia 2018, but before the 21st World Cup Final, we must decide who'll be in it, via 2 completely obvious, predictable semi-finals: Tuesday: France v Belgium Wednesday: England v Croatia (yes, really) The winners, of course, will contest the 2018 World Cup Final in Moscow on 15 July - the losers also stay in Russia for the 3rd place game on Saturday. Good luck to all supporters of the final 4.