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If they're proposing a stadium that small for athletics, they shouldn't bother bidding (and probably wouldn't have been selected by the USOC in the first place). What Rio did is not necessarily a template for Boston to repeat. Again, Gillette Stadium is not the Maracana in terms of history, prestige, and location. And their athletics stadium holds 60,000 which is the IOC benchmark.

Yup, I've said before that Rio's situation was strange. They'd just built an athletics stadium that was just-about big enough, but they also had a huge iconic stadium with a large circular footprint in the Maracana - perfect for ceremonies. How many other cities are in that situation?

Most cities either have a big enough stadium already with a track (e.g. Paris), would expand or renovate one (e.g. Athens) or would build anew (e.g. London and Beijing). Few would put that amount of money into an athletics stadium, or be in the fortunate position of already having an athletics stadium, and then not bother having the ceremonies there.

The 30k difference in capacity plus the fact the Maracana has a large circular footprint meant it made sense for RIo. I can't think of many other cities where the two stadiujm solution would.

If Boston is putting hundreds of millions into a new athletics stadium - temporary or otherwise - I'm sure they'd also want to put the ceremonies there. Logistically and economically it makes sense.

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If they're proposing a stadium that small for athletics, they shouldn't bother bidding (and probably wouldn't have been selected by the USOC in the first place). What Rio did is not necessarily a template for Boston to repeat. Again, Gillette Stadium is not the Maracana in terms of history, prestige, and location. And their athletics stadium holds 60,000 which is the IOC benchmark.

We've become ingrained to think this way. But if you step back, it's ridiculous. Why is having a bigass stadium for Athletics so important? It's not, or at least it shouldn't be.

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We've become ingrained to think this way. But if you step back, it's ridiculous. Why is having a bigass stadium for Athletics so important? It's not, or at least it shouldn't be.

Define bigass? It's not like these bidders are being asked to produce a 100,000+ seat stadium like they had in Seoul and Sydney. But they're looking for a larger stadium for athletics because they can fill those seats (yes, I know there's more than a few of the morning sessions where a lot of those seats are empty). Should they not have capacity requirements on any venues? Would that make this process more sensible?

This is a competition, in case you had forgotten. Paris has Stade de France. Berlin, if they bid, had a ready-made stadium. Rome has Stadio Olimpico they can make improvements upon. If Boston goes up against any or all of those with an undersized track & field venue in their proposal, how's that going to look? You say it's ridiculous, but this is the IOC you're talking about. I know some on here believe that Agenda 2020 is the cure all to these concerns where bidders can say "well, 60,000 seats might be tough for us, it's easier if we propose less." That's all well and good until the other bidder is saying we can give you what you want and we can do it without spending billions of dollars to do so. In that regard, it's not so ridiculous. Especially if you want to win the vote

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If Boston is putting hundreds of millions into a new athletics stadium - temporary or otherwise - I'm sure they'd also want to put the ceremonies there. Logistically and economically it makes sense.

I agree, but a key problem with hosting the games in Boston is space. They may be looking at construction sites that only allow for a smaller stadium.

I'm certainly not advocating putting the ceremonies way out in the suburbs. But an inadequate athletics stadium is the only way to make sense of a plan to host the ceremonies in a frankly terrible location in a stadium that isn't even very large.

Let's hope this turns out to be an unfounded rumor.

Why is having a bigass stadium for Athletics so important? It's not, or at least it shouldn't be.

Track and field is the centerpiece of the Olympics, though. Even those of us who are cynical in our view of the economic effects of the Olympics (and mega-events in general) aren't advocating damaging the marquee sport(s) of the games.

If a city doesn't have a reasonable plan for the athletics stadium then it simply shouldn't bid: it would be a lot more beneficial to let a city with a decent stadium cut out the equestrian, rowing and sailing events to save money.

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I saw this comment while I was reading this article. I have no idea if it's true, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was...

And yet 75% of "No Boston's" social followers live outside of Massachusetts and even the US, they hired protesters online... And they continue to Illegally request donations without a certificate of solicitation from the Attorney General. Send all the messages you want to the IOC and USOC and make sure you use the same cover letter as last time since you manipulated their logo and used copyrighted words & phrases = lawsuit

http://www.bostonherald.com/news_opinion/local_coverage/2015/01/support_grows_for_foes_of_2024_olympics_in_boston

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Sorry, but there's simply no way they would spend several hundred millions of dollars on a temporary stadium immediately adjacent to downtown and multiple public transportation centers, but then locate the most televised aspect of the entire Olympic week to a (not much bigger) stadium with a smaller in-field 30 miles down the road. I have to believe that this is all just air-time filler that some airhead on CBS blathered out during the football pre-game show.

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Among them was Dr Edmund Schluessel, proudly wearing a blindingly red shirt bearing the world “Socialist”. Schluessel discussed making No Olympics part of a #BlackLivesMatter rally, mentioned the potential of the Olympics turning the area into a “security state that you wouldn’t believe”

If that's the intellectual capacity of the opponents of this bid then Boston will be fine! What the hell does he hope to gain conflating those two things? :wacko:

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