WarpedReality

I still consider Paris to be the favorite, but Hamburg is definitely the strongest contender for 2nd place. We still don't even know what Angelinos reaction will be to being asked to fund a multi-billion dollar vanity project.

Nobody should discount what is coming out of Hamburg. LA's got their work cut out for them if they want to finish 2nd.

BOS has regular air service to SLK which is just a 10 minute drive to Lake Placid. Currently, the flight is on a Cape Air Cessna, which takes 90 minutes, but SLK airport can handle aircraft as large as a B757. Presumably, a larger aircraft could be leased if demand warranted it. I totally understand that in the near term, a winter bid isn't in the cards for either the East or the West until after the US hosts a summer games. My speculation is more general. Presumably, the US is going to host one or two winter Olympics before 2050. What I wonder is if the Eastern half of the country even stands a chance against the West for being picked to host those inevitable American WOGs.

Would Harris Hill in Brattleboro, VT make sense as a ski jumping venue? It's a bit closer to Boston & NYC than Lake Placid.

Also, Park City is more than 2x as far away from either Denver or Reno as Lake Placid is from New York or Boston.

Good points. At this rate, a NYC/Lake Placid bid may be eastern NA's only hope. Fun Fact: Boston-Lake Placid is only 18 miles more than NYC-Lake Placid

Speed skating venues cost an order of magnitude less than a new multipurpose T&F stadium. If a city as small as SLC can find an appropriate legacy for its venues, Boston's far greater population means it can do the same. It all comes down to whether or not Bostonians actually give a damn about sharing their city with the world.

Granted, Bostonians are quite crabby after the SOG bid fiasco, but Boston makes much more sense as a host for the ice events than Albany. Unlike the summer bid, there won't be any silly discussions about velodromes or T&F stadia without legacies. The potential hosts out West certainly offer better options, but I think Boston/Killington remains the best chance of a winter Olympics in the eastern half of North America so long as the IOC is willing to bend the rules for the Stockhom/Ares of the world.

So does this mean that there will be no more Winter Olympics in the eastern half of North Americar?

Boston + Killington, VT anyone?

The "well-oiled machine" in action. You know, there's a reason these guys were unable to achieve a majority of the board's support last January.

BOR-ING! I don't know why the USOC is going along with this mess. Let Paris host the '24 games and spend the next four years looking for the best candidate for '28.

You guys are forgetting about politics. The City of Los Angeles won't be signing the taxpayer guarantee to be the financial backstop for the games, the State of California will be. This is why I referred to Sacramento. Now, you have a bunch of politicians from NoCa being asked to fund a party in SoCa. Putting a couple events in the Bay area to placate those NoCa political interests might be what they need to do.

Even a solo LA bid is a surefire loser. Tacking SF on at least lets the USOC find out how serious those 2020 reforms are. It also placates Sacramento, who would be the financial guarantor.

I think the USOC is trying decide between a solo LA bid or a joing SF-LA bid.

At least it did not cost as much money for Boston's ship to sink.

Rob & others, I appreciate your comments. It is definitely true that the US professional sports have a deleterious relationship with some local governments. The problem spills over into other areas and makes it difficult to host the Olympics here. It is a complex problem that needs resolution, but sadly there is no political will either in the US or in Lausanne. For context, I will add that Boston is a bit unique in the US because the local government there has not subsidized any of the local sports teams. This is why the Boston Patriots moved to Foxborough and became the New England Patriots. It is why the Red Sox play in a ballpark that is quaint and historic, but woefully inadequate for the needs of a 21st century baseball team.

I will desist from beating this dead horse as well. There are strong arguments on both sides. However, to answer a few final concerns: The proposed reforms would benefit all nations of the world, not just the US. By putting the track inside an association football stadium, the costs of hosting will be dramatically reduced. No expensive modifications will be needed as is the case with West Ham FC's new stadium. Quaker, Thank you for providing those images to provide context. It seems that a track would need to be roughly 3/4 the size of the current one in order to fit inside a football field's dimensions. I am not an Olympic athlete, so I do not know if that significantly changes the nature of Track & Field. Ultimately, the issue is up to the athletes. Whether a modified track provides a similar competitive experience is for them to decide. Us amateurs on the internet have no clue what we are talking about. On one hand, we have precedents from other sports (ice hockey) where changing the dimensions of the arena weren't notable. On the other, we don't know if the experience of one sport translates well into another. In any case, the IOC should at least have a dialogue with IAAF surrounding this issue. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to spend a little money to construct a prototype of the smaller track and have Olympians run it in order to gauge its use as an alternative. If the conclusion of such a study was that a smaller track was unfeasible; I would gladly accept the results. In the end, it comes down to what exactly does the Olympic Movement want? Are they interested in spreading Olympicism to new areas? Or is sticking to tradition more important. Is the comfort of the familiar really that important. Without drastically modifying the Olympics, Chicago and the big cities of the Northeast will never host the games unless the dominoes of private and public interests align in an impossibly precise manner. Rob, The problem is that the Stade de France and other convertible designs are built the way they are only because they are government funded. In the US, stadia are often built privately by the teams that use them. No private for-profit organization is going to compromise its business model to build a stadium that might be used in an Olympics down the road. That isn't a sensible financial investment. How about my other idea (eliminate track cycling)?

I'm trying to find a visualization of the dimensions of athletics tracks vs the optimal size for association football & American football. It would be nice to exactly how much of a change we are talking about. If the difference is slight, then the non-uniformity between Olympic tracks and other ones might not matter so much. Special consideration can be given for the shortest races such as the aforementioned 100 m dash, but longer races are already expecting to spend substantial time running in the curved portions of the track. Mind you, we already went through this sort of process as none of the original tracks were standardized. Eventually, a standard was set and it evidently was not too costly to modify all the older tracks. Also it really only needs to be the tracks that host professional T&F meets that would need modification. Scholastic and other levels of competition can still use 400m tracks. After all, I did not use a MLB size field when I played in Little League.

With enough lead time, any transition is possible. Regardless, an NFL field is 120 yards long. There's enough real estate there for a straight 100 m track. It may not be part of the same oval used for all the other events, but that isn't much of a sacrifice. It all comes down to how serious the IOC is about reform. If the IAAF resisted, perhaps the 2036 games might not have any T&F events. That would starve the IAAF of prestige and money. Perhaps it could convince them to change their minds. The IOC has no qualms playing hardball with NOCs and host cities; they shouldn't have any qualms pushing relevant athletic federations. Everything gets replaced in the eventually. It is possible to set a new standard, but not phase it in until 2052. Then there is plenty of time and plenty of warning to help everyone switch over.

I never claimed it would be a simple change. Then there's no way the Olympics return to the US. The IOC has tough decisions to make and they do wield influence over athletic organizations. However you slice it, building a 80,000 seat stadium for track & field is a ridiculous proposition. Even modifiable stadiums like the Stade de France are excessive and are difficult to build without public funds. As long as this sort of stadium is a requirement, the Olympics cannot be sustainable. To make a sustainable games, there are only two options: 1: Modify the track dimensions 2: Scale back the scope of the stadium (< 30,000 capacity) We all know the IOC loves its money, so option 2 is not viable. Option 1 is the IOC's only hope.

I understand your point, but is it really worth spending all that money just to preserve runners' techniques? Also, the 2024 games are still 9 years in the future. There is plenty of time to phase in the new track design gradually over that period of time and allow athletes to adapt.

My point is to change the rules in order to make the track small enough to fit in such stadia without compromising their use for professional football.

You know very well as the the US Federal Government paid for the security at Salt Lake in 2002 and will need to do so again in any future American Olympic Games. I am talking about removing the burden on the taxpayers for building the revenues/village. How about eliminating track cycling events (or at least making them optional)? No city needs a velodrome. How about modifying the rules of Track & Field so that temporary tracks can be cheaply built in stadia designed primarily for American Football, Association Football, etc.? How about letting cities host participants in preexisting college dormitories instead of building new athletes' villages? There are lots of ways to reduce costs. Let cities be creative and flexible instead of weighing them down with a contract full of specific requirements. ***venues*** NOT "revenues"

LA 1984 went well despite the lack of a taxpayer guarantee. Let other American cities do the same.