2020 Bid?

[Athensfan]

Thank you Athensfan, most kindly, for your response.

However, I must take the opportunity to pull you back from the cliff of error with regards to my postings

Firstly, I never said that Chicago's bid did not have strong points. It did. It just happened that the three other bidding cities had wayyyyyyyy stronger proposals. So your use of the adjective superb will go down in history as an opinion with the very best intentions.

I do beleiev you are true that they are cheats all over the world. But that is not the issue, the degree of cheating is. I do believe the U.S is second to none in this regard.

I do believe you are lying to yourself ( you have my sincerest pity here) when you suggest that " I don't think he or anyone else expected a slam dunk for Chicago ". The Chicago people wanted him there just to make it as spectacular as possible.

I do believe and endorse some of your points regarding jealousy of the US. I've had the same experience myself here on Gamesbids. However, the authentic American is one who stands for truth even when it is bitter and we did the world a wrong. BUSH did the world a wrong.

Of course agmesbids did not help to sway the vote......it just help to expose the bids to a wee bit more scrutiny. enough said.

thank you once more

from

your ever serene majesty

Ruling Czar

I disagree with your argument that Chicago's bid was technically the worst of the four. I think the vast majority of IOC members would agree with me. I also think you'd find a lot of GamesBidders -- including a slew of non-Americans who would affirm that Chicago's bid was not the weakest of the four.

I don't think the figures support your arguments about cheaters from the U.S. -- what's more important, even if you are correct and the U.S. is the new East Germany, the American federations are vigilant about fighting doping and the IOC knows this. What more can you do? Dick Pound -- head of WADA -- was one of Chicago's biggest advocates. I never once heard him say that U.S. doping would hamper Chicago's bid.

Lying to myself? And you accuse others of arrogance? Not only can you read my mind, you can read President Obama's? I always thought Rio would win, I just didn't think Chicago would lose with only 18 votes. Neither you nor I knows exactly what President Obama expected in his heart of hearts. I personally do not think he is a fool and I think anyone with half a brain would know that by presenting the first viable South American bid, Rio was going to be a formidable opponent to a bid to host the ninth American Olympics. I suspect he thought Chicago had a chance. I also think that he knew his absence would be regarded as an insult, considering the fact that the world leaders from every other bidding nation were present.

For someone who has anointed himself "Ruling Czar" perhaps you should refrain from accusing others of arrogance?

[Ruling Czar]

I certainly can see why such bitterness consumes you since you were an advocate of Chicago. Alas, the fact remains that our supreme governess time cannot be swayed of her ways. Onward Then! To Rio!

Your serene majesty

czar

[Athensfan]

I certainly can see why such bitterness consumes you since you were an advocate of Chicago. Alas, the fact remains that our supreme governess time cannot be swayed of her ways. Onward Then! To Rio!

Your serene majesty

czar

Garbage.

[Ruling Czar]

....right from your mouth I presume?

[madrileño89]

....right from your mouth I presume?

stop being so obnoxious.

anyway, i think Madrid should try again in 2020. They deserve the games. two near perfect bids in a row and they haven't gotten it yet? What more do the IOC want?

[Rafa]

I don't think its a train smash for Chicago. I actually think Rio would have beaten them in the final round anyway.

They just didn't have enough "first votes". I mean even Rio was "at risk" considering it only managed 26 "first votes".

Take out Tokyo and Rio could have won in Round 2.

[Kenadian]

I think Madrid should give it a rest. In both the 2012 and 2016 races, they could only muster the support of a maximum 32 IOC members. While that is almost a third of the membership - and probably a good chunk of that friends and fans of Samaranch - there just doesn't seem to be an urgency to go back to Spain so soon.

Samaranch may have posed this as his final wish, but come on...the guy had to major wishes granted already. His hometown dream in Barcelona and and his Chinese fantasy in Beijing. Hey, he even got a pretty good couple of wishes come true in the early part of his presidency when he was given the thrown in Moscow (he was a Spanish diplomat to the Soviet Union at the time) and the saving grace of the Los Angeles Olympic marketing machine four years later.

[Rafa]

Politics of the Games beyond Americans' ken

TOM HUMPHRIES

Mon, Oct 05, 2009

LOCKER ROOM: Despite the combined forces of the Obamas and Oprah Winfrey, America’s bid to host the Olympics still came up short again

FUN IT was to be in Copenhagen last Friday evening. Fun, even for those of us who had been rooting for the great and fair city of Chicago to be awarded the Olympic Games of 2016. I’ve never met anybody who has spent anytime in Chicago who didn’t love the place. The possibility of an Olympic Games being held there, knowing how brilliantly and with what pride the city can run big events, was mouthwatering.

And yet, when it was announced to huge gasps in the massive press centre that Chicago had been bumped out in the first round of voting, the entertainment was so good it made Brazilians of us all. People from Rio and Madrid high-fived. The Japanese looked at each other earnestly. But every American in the place jumped to their feet and formed a righteous posse charged with finding out who was to blame and hanging them from a rafter.

Now I love and slavishly imitate the writing style of American sports hacks and I envy them their admiring sense of their own worth, this picture they have of themselves of being important players in the scheme of things.

We Irish hacks know by contrast that if the plane carrying ourselves and the Irish soccer team ever went down on the way to a game we’d reach under our seats and there would be flotation devices for our laptops but not for us.

The recovery of our moderately expensive machines would be presented as one of those inspiring good news stories like “dog found alive after earthquake” or “O’Donoghue Stays in Four Star Hotel”. Anyway, I digress.

American hacks are fine but as a herd they are a pain in the ass. The males of the species are all neat and dapper like the Mormon missionaries you have to shoo away from your door occasionally. The females are very intimidating and speak very loudly even by American standards. You may as well have a tour bus full of plaid-slacked, early bird-eating, Bob and Wilma-type American tourists disgorged into a press centre as let three American sports hacks in. The volume is the same and the depressing effect on the rest of the room is the same.

Usually they come in to a large press hall and spread out strategically. They are adept at separating themselves with precisely the amount of distance at which they can still hear each other when shouting at the top of their voices.

“BOB, ANY THOUGHTS ON DINNER TONIGHT?” “I’LL SPEAK TO STACEY ABOUT IT. SHE’S BEEN TO YURP BEFORE. STACE?” “NEAT. THANKS BOB.” “STACE??? STACE???”! “STACEY’S GONE TO THE BATHROOM, BOB. LOCAL FOOD ISSUE.” “YEAH, BOB IT’S STACEY. I’M IN THE BATHROOM BUT I CAN HEAR YOU. WHAT IS IT? YOU GUYS NEED DIRECTIONS TO MICKEY D’S?”

Anyway on Friday afternoon Chicago was eliminated straight off and suddenly it was Pearl Harbour. The shouting reached the sort of levels prone to cause tinnitus in the rest of us and there was a stampede of loud self- righteousness straight out the door and towards the hall in which the IOC were in session. Thinking the Americans were definitely going to invade the place and napalm the poor old dudes, a large number of us who had better things to be doing followed along for the entertainment.

The Danes still eat their fish raw and don’t know how to put a top slice of bread on to a sandwich, but they are smart and resolute. They created a narrow pass through which the the forces of the American Fourth Estate could not pass. This created wonderful chaos.

The guys charged with keeping the diarrhoea of breaking news flowing back to American TV stations kept turning their backs to the fighting and announcing, again and again, Chicago were out and there were “no availabilities for now from the Chicago bid team.”

Behind them the storm-troopers of the written press, for whom the term “no availabilities” is insufficient in terms of written copy, were roaring at the implacable Danes and roaring at dazed members of the Chicago bid team whom they could glimpse in the distance. “Bob. Bob. Over here Bob. Over here.”

Finally and deliciously, just as the Danes were making a push forward to clear the area, a foolhardy member of the Chicago bid team, whose name was actually Bob, made a run for it. He got as far as the door beside the Gourmet Cafe (which retails topless sandwiches at exorbitant prices) and he got brought down. Penned in aft and rear, he chose to give his interview while standing in the door frame, which meant in scientific terms he was receiving the same amount of physical pressure from the massive scrum behind him as he was from the great heave of hacks in front of him. We pushed him hither and thither like it was some mad party game while he tried to answer questions about why the IOC had just bitch-slapped president Obama and the entire American nation.

It was all frightening and very amusing in equal measure. Then some of the hacks at the back of the scrum had a brilliant idea. Unable to hear a word Bob was saying, they proposed repeating the exercise but with the “guys at the back rotating to the front”. The guys at the front who were pressed groin to groin with poor Bob didn’t think this was such a swell idea so with Bob trapped helplessly in the middle, media men and women tried uselessly to slide past each other, inadvertently performing acts of lewdness on each other which are still illegal in many southern states.

The whole rotation exercise broke down briefly and, spotting a gap, Bob made a run for it, his egress helped by the diversionary sighting of two United States Olympic Committee members standing on the far side of the entrance lobby talking to each other. Chaaaaaaaaaarge! By the time the guys and gals reached the railing separating them from the two USOC members they were in disarray.

Reporters were separated from their camera operators and instructions had to be given to Steffi and (I think, another) Bob that when this reporter was asking a question Steffi or Bob had to look at that camera over there.

So it proceeded. How could the most American of American cities which had presented the IOC with not just President Obama, but Oprah too, have been snubbed this way?

And in the answers that followed and the reports they generated you could find the answer without even trying. Many American reports felt Chicago had lost because America lacks clout at IOC politics level. In fact, Anita de Franz is one of the most respected IOC members. The IOC owns the Games, however. It does what it likes with them. It’s not about clout. America, whose companies cough up most of the finance for the Games and America, which takes back the same-sized slice as all the other 205 nations divide up between themselves, will never accept this or even fully understand it. Not just won’t accept it but can’t see it, cannot get a grasp on the whole phoney baloney spirit of Olympism for long enough to see the other 205 nations aren’t just the supporting cast in an everlasting narrative about American sporting glory but have their own hopes and aspirations, their own narratives to write.

Americans can’t come to grips with the fact that if their TV companies pay more for the Games than anybody else does, and their corporations chip in more sponsorship, it is for no other reason than that the market will sustain that. Nobody except its own competitive market forces NBC to pay so much to be the Olympic channel. NBC’s money buys it lots of privileges and gives the Games saturation coverage on US televisions which means it makes sense for American corporations to weigh in as sponsors.

The IOC owns the Games though! In two successive campaigns the IOC has emphatically rejected the claims of great American cities to host the Games. There was no post 9/11 sympathy vote for New York four years ago. President Obama’s brief visit to Copenhagen was described by one former IOC member, Kai Holm, as being “too businesslike. It can be that some IOC members see it as a lack of respect.” He hit the nail on the head.

The IOC may be an absurd collection of the grand poobahs of sport but they own the Games and they run the Games. On Friday the IOC smiled at the Obamas and then settled its own score with the USOC.

It will be a long time before another leading American politician will take the risk which Barack Obama took last Friday. Probably even longer before we see a summer games going to the USA. Having opened up South America to the Games the IOC will be sweet on the idea of doing the same with Africa and Cape Town is the early favourite for 2020.

Our American friends? They won’t get the Games again till they get the politics of the Games.

© 2009 The Irish Times

[Cinderella]

Either the cultural and continental rotation won't play in favour of Madrid in 2020. They'd better wait until 2024, time enough to improve the very few lacks of this past bid and become a strong contender for other European capitals that will be very hard to beat.

[baron-pierreIV]

Either the cultural and continental rotation won't play in favour of Madrid in 2020. They'd better wait until 2024, time enough to improve the very few lacks of this past bid and become a strong contender for other European capitals that will be very hard to beat.

First time I agree with you. 2024 would favor a Euro candidate again.

[Tutankamon]

A dead Samaranch may be useful too. This time, Madrid was even closer than before and if JAS is dead by 2013 or so and Madrid name it's main stadium after the old guy, 2020 may be theirs.

u continue with ur argument?...

[Lord David]

Perhaps the Spanish should try something different for 2020 and propose some sort of Olympic bid in a city that doesn't even exist yet.

Yep, make some sort of planned city somewhere in the country, (doesn't have to be a new capital, but could be), with all the necessary infrastructure built from scratch, and some sort of Spanish Sports City, to host the Olympics. Now that would be an interesting bid to go by.

[Sir Rols]

Perhaps the Spanish should try something different for 2020 and propose some sort of Olympic bid in a city that doesn't even exist yet.

Yep, make some sort of planned city somewhere in the country, (doesn't have to be a new capital, but could be), with all the necessary infrastructure built from scratch, and some sort of Spanish Sports City, to host the Olympics. Now that would be an interesting bid to go by.

The Sri Lankans are already doing that with Handjobtuta

[DannyelBrazil]

It seems 2024 is the perfect spot for Madrid, but, I think Madrid should bid for 2020... To get stronger and stronger for the tight fight for 2024 with Paris...

I really think 2020 is also the perfect spot for Cape Town, if not win 2020 race, the african dream will need to wait more 8 years at least... It's just a bet...

[CanisMinor]

It seems 2024 is the perfect spot for Madrid, but, I think Madrid should bid for 2020... To get stronger and stronger for the tight fight for 2024 with Paris...

I really think 2020 is also the perfect spot for Cape Town, if not win 2020 race, the african dream will need to wait more 8 years at least... It's just a bet...

Not sure I agree. I used to think that 2020 was CT's to lose, but it's looking more and more like SA is not really getting yet for a 2020 bid. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see many signs of that.

Add to that, that Europe is "due" another games, I think 2020 could be Madrid's to lose. We'll see a 2020 battle between Rome, Tokyo and Madrid, with the latter triumphing. Cape Town will go for 2024 and Tokyo for 2028.

[aluz]

Not sure I agree. I used to think that 2020 was CT's to lose, but it's looking more and more like SA is not really getting yet for a 2020 bid. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't see many signs of that.

Add to that, that Europe is "due" another games, I think 2020 could be Madrid's to lose. We'll see a 2020 battle between Rome, Tokyo and Madrid, with the latter triumphing. Cape Town will go for 2024 and Tokyo for 2028.

2020 would be a nowhere but the Americas. If SA puts in a credible bid it can easily take it. However, both Asians and Europeans are very well positioned to win as well. If 2020 doesn't go to Europe, I wouldn't advise any city outside Europe to bid for 2024.

Anyway, I think Madrid is off. First because Barcelona was not that far ago, second because Spain is getting into some serious economic trouble.

[FYI]

If things keep going the way they are, everyone is going to be 'off'.

[Rafa]

There will be no "easy" taking of the bid by any city. Don't be fooled by a "favourite" status this early on.

[Sir Rols]

There will be no "easy" taking of the bid by any city. Don't be fooled by a "favourite" status this early on.

Exactly Mo, it's still the Silly Season of the bid - anything an everything is still on the table and possible (except Buenos Aires or Mexico's hosting chances). And as for Madrid, I've seen no evidence to date they're even gonna bid (and with Barcelona in the 2022 mix, even stronger circumstantial evidence that they WON'T bid).

[FYI]

And as for Madrid, I've seen no evidence to date they're even gonna bid (and with Barcelona in the 2022 mix, even stronger circumstantial evidence that they WON'T bid).

Which seems dumb, really. In a race where continental rotation could favor Europe easily (2020) they might stay out of it, but yet in a race where continental rotation was totally stacked against Europe (2016), the Spanish were all gung-ho to jump into that fray. Bizarre logic, imo (regardless of JAS).

[747]

Madrid was the best, Rio was too sweaty, Chicago had no idea why what they were there to do, and Tokyo was trying to be anything but Japanese....sad.

Also actually, I didn't see Rio or Tokyo's presentations...but I think the videos of Madrid were a little better than Chicago's.

[baron-pierreIV]

/\ Did I really say that? The above's a fabrication -- altho I am flattered u bothered to dig it up.

Anyway, the game isn't won by fancy videos.

[qwerty76]

I don't understand the logic of the Spanish.

Their bid for 2012 stunk of expectation and that they deserved it simply being that they are the "greatest" European capital not to have hosted, seemingly ignoring the fact that Barcelona had hosted a mere 20 years before (which, actually is enough time to commence bidding again). Then they push on for a bid for 2016, with 2012 and 2014 both in Europe. It just seemed SO absurd. I'll give them respect for their confidence.

And now they seem to be shying away from 2020?

They should have saved their money and never bid for 2012 and 2016 for the first place. There is alot of talk of "practice bids", which to be honest is a load of BS. I believe candidates PR teams only say that to save face in the event they loose "WE WERE ONLY PRACTICING ANYWAY!!!11"

Madrid risks becoming a repetitive begger. They should never have attempted 2012 or '16, and simply presented themselves for 2020. A good enough time would have passed since Barcelona, and they would appear fresh.

2012 and 2016 has damaged their chances. Europe's Detroit, perhaps?

[baron-pierreIV]

I don't understand the logic of the Spanish.

Their bid for 2012 stunk of expectation and that they deserved it simply being that they are the "greatest" European capital not to have hosted, seemingly ignoring the fact that Barcelona had hosted a mere 20 years before (which, actually is enough time to commence bidding again). Then they push on for a bid for 2016, with 2012 and 2014 both in Europe. It just seemed SO absurd. I'll give them respect for their confidence.

And now they seem to be shying away from 2020?

They should have saved their money and never bid for 2012 and 2016 for the first place. There is alot of talk of "practice bids", which to be honest is a load of BS. I believe candidates PR teams only say that to save face in the event they loose "WE WERE ONLY PRACTICING ANYWAY!!!11"

Madrid risks becoming a repetitive begger. They should never have attempted 2012 or '16, and simply presented themselves for 2020. A good enough time would have passed since Barcelona, and they would appear fresh.

2012 and 2016 has damaged their chances. Europe's Detroit, perhaps?

Qwerty, everything in life is 20/20 hindsight.

Madrid was going full blast for 2012/16 because the Old Man was still alive and he could deliver a bloc of votes which Madrid probably would not get without him. They were right in their timing (vis-a-vis having JAS, Sr., deliver votes) but unfortunately, not enough to bring the jamon home either time. Of course, they will not run for 2020 because (i) there is growing mommentum for Africa's turn, especially in a month's time that sentiment will be most palpable; and (ii) the Old scheme-maker has gone on to meet his Maker.

[qwerty76]

Qwerty, everything in life is 20/20 hindsight.

Madrid was going full blast for 2012/16 because the Old Man was still alive and he could deliver a bloc of votes which Madrid probably would not get without him. They were right in their timing (vis-a-vis having JAS, Sr., deliver votes) but unfortunately, not enough to bring the jamon home either time. Of course, they will not run for 2020 because (i) there is growing mommentum for Africa's turn, especially in a month's time that sentiment will be most palpable; and (ii) the Old scheme-maker has gone on to meet his Maker.

Not really hindsight - the clues were there for both bids, something that perhaps Madrid (and other cities) should realistically consider before spending millions on a bid.

2012 - really... did they really think they could land the Games only 20 years after 1992 - and up against cities like Paris and London, which have a higher international profile than Madrid?

2016 - after London 2012 and Sochi 2014 did they really expect a third consecutive European Games to be awarded to Spain?