August

This is just my opinion and I'm probably a purist of the highest order. In my opinion, a two-run sprint downhill should be used only under exceptional circumstances. The past weekend was exceptional; the races were already moved from from St. Anton to Zauchensee, and neither Zauchensee was able to prepare a full downhill course. When the options were a sprint downhill or no downhill at all, the right decision was made. That actually wasn't the premiere for the two-run sprint downhill. That format was used in Kitzbühel in the 90s in the Friday race, to distinguish it from Saturday's traditional Hahnenkamm downhill. Again fine. A more recent example of considering the two-run downhill was in Val Gardena few years ago. After a snowfall at night, it was clear the top section cannot be prepared for the race, so they were going to run it as a sprint downhill. Eventually, they start got delayed so much that they had to run the downhill as a one-run race on a shortened course. Not ideal, and even worse was the Hahnenkamm downhill last year, when it had to be shortened to under a minute. Those are the exceptional circumstances I'm talking about. But lack of slopes with sufficient height difference isn't. I might change my opinion on that if there were countries really deserving major alpine skiing events despite the lack of a full DH slope. But there aren't, China isn't one.

I'm fine with a two-run sprint downhill when a full-length one-run downhill is impossible for unforeseen reasons, like next weekend at women's races in Zauchensee where they run on a shorted course due to lack of snow. But I like your idea of two full runs. A reason why I don't rate the Olympics so high in alpine skiing (below the World Cup titles and alongside classic races like Hahnenkamm) is that they're really not that different from World Cup races; just a bigger TV audience but actually also a weaker field as even big ski nations can send only four athletes. If I were in charge, I'd ape Ski-Flying Worlds and make both the Olympic downhill and the super-G two-day events with two-run aggregate times deciding the results. That would make Olympics more special. No need for that in technical disciplines; they already have two runs, plus with DNFs being so common there, doubling runs would make them a survival battle.

The alpine skiing downhill event alongside super-G, long-distance cross-country skiing, and Nordic combined are events whose inclusion for the 2022 Winter Olympics is threatened. (Elsewhere I've also seen normal hill ski jumping mentioned.) http://www.skiracing.com/premium/will-the-olympic-downhill-be-eliminated A reason for eliminating those would be reduce costs and have shorter ski slopes and cross-country trails, less snowmaking, and just one ski jumping hill. While I think the cost of Olympics must be reduced, it should not affect the essentials of the Games. Alpine skiing has four plus one disciplines; the speed disciplines downhill and super-G, and the technical disciplines giant slalom and slalom, plus alpine combined of downhill and slalom. And I think a major championship must feature them all. Well, there's a solution to retain downhill, to have it with two shorter runs. But two one-minute runs isn't the same as one two-minute run. Maybe the Olympics would be just fine with these changes; however I feel it'd lose some prestige within alpine skiing, especially as alpine skiing has highly appreciated season-long World Cup titles. As for long-distance cross-country skiing, I couldn't anymore care less, the damage has already happened. I can't blame the IOC as the FIS changed men's 50km / women's 30km to a mass start instead of a time trial at the 2005 Worlds, how it's also been at the Olympics since 2006. So often a 50km mass start ends with a big lead group still together after 49km and the winner is the one with best sprint abilities, not necessarily the best fitness like in the traditional 50km time trials. As long as 50km is not a time trial, I'd be fine with no 50km at all. Getting rid of Nordic combined makes no sense; it doesn't require any additional venues, there's already the jumping hill and the ski trails. Getting rid of normal hill wouldn't be such a big deal. It's very rarely used for men on top level, usually only at major championships. Without the normal hill competition, the large hill could have a two-day, four-round competition like ski-flying world championship; doubling rounds would make it fairer. However, having both hills is such an established tradition in ski jumping major championships. And the difference is comparable to 100m and 200m in running or swimming; that's why having two ski jumping events feels fair. Also, women's competitions usually take place on normal hill, like the sole Olympic competition. That's another reason to retain the normal hill. And thinking about the Games' legacy; while not anymore so common in competitions, normal hills are used for training. It compliments the venue, making it not only for competitions but also for training.

Davis Cup has had also some other interesting venues. This year's final in Lille: The soccer stadium has some seats installed below the other half of the soccer field. That half of the field is moved aside to get those seats exposed. Also, the stadium has a retractable roof and the Davis Cup final was played indoors. The final some years ago in Seville: The court was built at one end of an athletics stadium and a roof was installed above the tennis court. The benefit from doing that is to use the existing media center of the stadium. That would make sense also at the Olympics. No need to build a new venue if there's one for another sport that can be temporarily converted.

Still, existing venues can be temporarily converted for other sports. As an example, a baseball stadium converted for Davis Cup tennis in San Diego:

Omega has been since 2006, Swatch was at least in 2000 and 2004. Seiko was in 2002, and according to Wikipedia also in the Winter Games 1998 and '94 plus Summer Games 1992.

London bidded before the Beijing games.

As much as I wanted Munich to host the Winter Olympics, I must say I'm right now laughing at the IOC. They give Olympics to places like Beijing and Sochi that lift the bar so high that Western Europe can't afford hosting the games. But no problem, Beijing will be bidding and can throw in endlessly money. Just make China a permanent host for the games. Countries save a lot of money as they don't need to bid, let alone host the games.

Well, it seems the games had most support in GAP.

I must say I like the modern look of the new stadium (and in general I prefer classic arcitecture over modern.) and it looks like it can be one of the best stadiums in the world with a moveable seating and retractable roof. But it's sad that a former Olympic Stadium will get demolished to make place for the new one. I would prefer modernizing an old stadium or rebuilding it in a bigger scale with the original design. (I think Oslo's Bislett is a good example on that, you can see some architectural features of the old stadium in the new one.) But the old National Stadium has only 48,000 seats. That's way too little for the Olympics and hard to expand. So a new stadium is a necessity. Well, I'd like it in the old stadium's style but that would be problematic. It's not easy to install a retractable roof when the other side of the stadium is higher than the other. Also, the former design might not allow the moveable seating on the lower rows.

I'm confident about Turkey's chances in 2024. I don't think they would be denied the Olympics once again. Other strong candidates would be the USA and South Africa. But I think the Olympics can wait for four years to get to the USA and South Africa has already lost their post-World Cup momentum. I think 2024 games are Turkey's to lose. But they must not have issues like the demonstrations this year or doping scandals.

@markun: You just listed 5 reasons why I don't want the Olympics to Sweden. (not all 7 because I don't care about royal families and don't know what's that Avicii.)

So Munich, Oslo, and Stockholm seem to be the most popular options here. Munich seems like the best option in my eyes. It's the most compact bid of those. Even though that doesn't mean there wouldn't be some long drives. It takes 2h30min to drive from Königssee to Garmisch-Partenkirchen. MUC bid also has many existing venues. The only thing I don't like in that bid is splitting Nordic skiing events to two different towns with a two-hour drive between them. After Munich, I think Oslo is the 2nd best bid. But the Lillehammer cluster is quite far from Oslo, which I see as a problem. Long distances are also the problem with Stockholm/Åre. But it's not the longer distance to Alpine events why I see Stockholm as a worse bid than Oslo. I just think the Alpine events would be too much in isolation from the other sports. I prefer Oslo's concept where the Lillehammer cluster doesn't have only the Alpine events but also e.g. the sliding events. In Stockholm's case I'd prefer a concept where the indoor sports would be in Stockholm and snow sports in Åre. A bit like with Torino, indoor sports in Torino and snow sports in the Sestriere region. Another reason why I prefer Oslo's bid to Stockholm's is that they have more venues existing. The only thing I prefer in Stockholm is that Sweden has never hosted the winter games, Norway hosted as recently as in 1994, partly in the same venues. But isolating Alpine events to Åre is a massive NO for me. If Munich's bid gets rejected in the referendum, then I hope one of the more exotic candidates comes up with a compact bid and gets the games. I can see major weaknesses in Stockholm's and Oslo's bids.

My bad, I just remembered it's on the 10th day. I was already wondering how there wasn't much about that on German newspapers' websites.

Tomorrow. Does anybody have an idea about how close the referendum will be? Wikipedia says there needs to be a majority support from each locality.

So Stockholm would be the host city and Alpine events would be in Åre. But where would be Nordic skiing as well as sliding events?

I don't like about the idea of having cross-country skiing in Ruhpolding apart from other Nordic disciplines in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. I think Nordic disciplines belong together like in the World Ch'ships. It takes two hours to drive from one of those venues to the other. I think that's too much as those sports have many common fans. On the other hand, I can understand that it's good to have cross-country and biathlon on the same region, there are athletes that complete in both sports. So I think biathlon and the Nordic disciplines should be in the same area. Either in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, a traditional ski jumping venue with also the Alpine disciplines. Or in Ruhpolding, a traditional biathlon venue close to the Königssee sliding venue. Both GAP and Ruhpoling have jumping hills, which is the most costly Nordic skiing venues. GAP has the more modern jumping hill.

I don't think race walking is the biggest problem for the Olympics. They have also other street events, and walking doesn't require new sports venues. Tennis is a sport I'd drop off from the games. Olympics really aren't the most important event for tennis but the host needs a 10k-seater stadium and two other 3-5k-seater stadiums. I think there would be sports with cheaper venues.

Race walking is a traditional athletics event, no way it should be dropped from the games. About football, I think it's OK it's the games. Yeah, men's football is basically an U23 ch'ship but women's football has all big names. And football has long traditions in the Olympics. But beach soccer could be a good addition, a growing sport without a really big event. Olympics would a big for beach soccer. I think golf was a bad addition. The Olympics won't be golfers main prioroty in Olympic years. But yeah, golf brings more viewers than e.g. squash.

Well, I think you can say that about wrestling, too. In general, I think it's hard to find popular non-Olympic sports that would be good additions to the Olympics. Those sports have their traditional events and Olympics don't become the biggest thing in those sports. I think those sports, like tennis (which I'm a big fan of) are a waste of an Olympic status, there would be many other sports where the Olympics would be athletes' main goal. What those sports have to give to the Olympics is star athletes helping in marketing. And I don't care about that very much. I think Beach Volley has been a great addition, a young but increasingly popular sport that lacked yet a really big event. But none of those three candidates is a new Beach Volley. I don't know about baseball. I guess the MLB title is the biggest thing in baseball, just like in any big North American team sport. The Olympics would be less important but that wouldn't be a problem for me if the Olympics would be the biggest international event and players would care about it like they do in ice hockey or basketball.

I want wrestling to remain in the Olympics, it's one of the most traditional Olympic sports. But unless they retain their Olympic status, I'd like to see squash in the games. It feels like a perfect addition to the Olympics. It is an old, traditional sport but doesn't have an event that gets much worldwide attention. I think Olympics would immediately become the biggest event for squash so they'd be a good Olympic sport.