Permanent Home for the Olympic Games

[kevzz]

Read this article in the Guardian today - that the most worrying sign threatening the future of the Olympic movement is not the doping scandal but whether does anyone really want to host the Games anymore? It leads to the recent article in Inside the Games proposing a permanent Olympic 'city' close to Olympia in Greece. Different 'theme host' will be chosen for each Games who will be in charge of the ceremonies. I know this idea has been floating around for quite sometime, but do you think this is really the future of the Olympic Games?

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/27/biggest-threat-future-olympic-games-rio-2016-ioc-thomas-bach-hosts

http://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1039431/derek-boosey-a-proposed-permanent-home-for-the-modern-olympic-games

[baron-pierreIV]

Impractical.  Not going to work.  One city per continent might work - rotating every 6 cycles.  But it also means -- and a case for the Summers, that a new village for at least 10,000 bodies must rise every 24 years in order to house the athletes.  They have to CUT DOWN the size of the summers to at least HALF to make this vision viable -- otherwise, what will hotels and, just going by the size of Rio's Olympic Village, eighteen (18) huge highrises do for the 3.5 years in between Games??  Just sit empty?  Be taken over by the homeless?  

Edited July 27, 2016 by baron-pierreIV
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[Rob2012]

Despite the problems (the OG seems to have been in "crisis" for two decades now if you believe every doom laden article!) the IOC isn't doing a bad job when it comes to SOGs hosts. London just gone. RIo and Tokyo lined up, Paris/LA/Rome fighting it out for the next one.

It's the Winter Games where the worry is.

[kevzz]

Perhaps in the future when technology allows, we can have moving, floating Olympic islands that travels to a host city (country) every four years as proposed in the link below. All the sports venues included. They just need to provide accommodation and other media amenities. Yes this may disadvantage landlocked countries but they are only a very small percentage and could co-host with other sea-bordering country.

http://autograf-studio.pl/portfolio/olympic-island/

[baron-pierreIV]

1 minute ago, kevzz said:

Perhaps in the future when technology allows, we can have moving, floating Olympic islands that travels to a host city (country) every four years as proposed in the link below. All the sports venues included. They just need to provide accommodation and other media amenities. Yes this may disadvantage landlocked countries but they are only a very small percentage and could co-host with other sea-bordering country.

http://autograf-studio.pl/portfolio/olympic-island/

 

Altho again, where would these huge "islands" sit in the intervening years?  And preparing the right docking facilities for the 4 week (OK, including the Paras) extravaganza, isn't going to be cheap.  Even now, with the $5.3 billion expansion of the Panama Canal, it turns out it's not big enough as certain ships have gotten damaged.  So that "floating Olympic city" dream is just a CAD graphic student's project; nothing more.  

[kevzz]

They will be rented out in the intervening years, as a sporting resorts. 

[baron-pierreIV]

But if the "recyclable" notion of one venue (the Basketball Arena of London) didn't work -- I mean Glasgow up the street didn't even rent the damned thing -- how can this 5-island business work?  Nope. Not going to work.  The IOC has to cut down the size of the Games.  Even Qatar 2022's idea of parcelling out 2 or 3 of its stadia after 2022, remains to be seen.  

[kevzz]

How about having a 'pre-continental' Olympic Games for the heats and only transport athletes who made it to the semi-final and finals to the ultimate host cities? This way more cities will get to host the Games (one city in each continent) albeit for heats only. The final host city will be chosen with the usual methods, and hosts the opening and closing ceremony. This way, the host city will have to deal with less athletes and make the final trip to the final host city all the more memorable and worthwhile for all the athletes! Like the final of the Hunger Games descending into the Capitol!

[kevzz]

Not sure if athletes in each city will only compete with athletes from the same continent; or each continent host city will be designated a group of say 5 sports each to host.

[kevzz]

Or maybe the final host city only host the finals. Heats and semi-finals in the continent host city.

[baron-pierreIV]

But the whole thing about awarding something like an Olympic Games or a World Expo is that it BRINGS improvements to a city.  The set deadlines ACCELERATE amelioration PROJECTS that would otherwise languish in bureaucratic hell.  What about the few thousand jobs in the 6-8 years leading to a Games (or an Expo)?   This crazy "rentable" idea will take all of that away.  Again, NOT VIABLE I say.  Right up there with Hitler's Germania Stadium dream and North Korea's Ryugong Hotel.  

[Quaker2001]

This has been floated before, but it's not a viable idea IMO.  And for all that we've talked about how the IOC needs to loosen their demands to host cities, I feel like they'd do that long before they'd entertain the notion of a permanent or semi-permanent host city, which is problematic enough in itself for reasons already mentioned.

[hektor]

The only option which would be remotely viable would be to have one host city per continent (London, Beijing, Los Angeles, Rio, Cape Town, Sydney for instance) with an IOC guarantee to have at least three Games each. That would guarantee 72 years of Olympiad, and each city would host every 24 years).

If you read Coubertin Memories, there was also the proposal by Greece to host the Games in Athens every eight years, and to rotate the other Olympiad cycle, so a need to look for a host city only every eight years. Of course Coubertin was against it, too afraid to attach the Games to a single location.

On a side note, adding five sports and 500+ athletes to the Games of the XXXII Olympiad is not exactly a step in the right direction.

Edited August 11, 2016 by hektor

[baron-pierreIV]

1 hour ago, hektor said:

On a side note, adding five sports and 500+ athletes to the Games of the XXXII Olympiad is not exactly a step in the right direction.

 

Agreed.  It's just so stupid.  They NEED to stop adding more and more.  

[Rob2012]

2 hours ago, hektor said:

On a side note, adding five sports and 500+ athletes to the Games of the XXXII Olympiad is not exactly a step in the right direction.

I haven't really looked into the details of what this entails for Tokyo in terms of construction. If the venues already exist the extra accommodation would seem to be the biggest issue (though hardly a huge one). But I don't have much problem with sports being added as one-offs if venues already exists (Rugby in London would've been a great addition for example). It could actually be more profitable for the OCOG if done right.

[Scotguy]

Perhaps they could go down the Commonwealth Games route with having several core sports then the remaining proposed by the hosts depending on their existing venues and popularity etc

Much money gets spent on creating venues like canoe/kayak courses that most cities dont have the need for post games

[Sir Rols]

14 minutes ago, Scotguy said:

Perhaps they could go down the Commonwealth Games route with having several core sports then the remaining proposed by the hosts depending on their existing venues and popularity etc

Much money gets spent on creating venues like canoe/kayak courses that most cities dont have the need for post games

I think that's a more realistic and acceptable scenario than the old and weary "permanent host" suggestion.

[krow]

the only permanent host idea i like is having a permanent bobsled host for the winter games, along with any other obscure and expensive venues they're asking hosts to build.

there's only so many times asia and north america can come to the rescue. the winter olympics were the brainchild of western europe and they're going to have to step up and the IOC is going to have to make some sacrifices if they want them to continue, because right now 2022-26 is not exactly filling me with a long-term sense of confidence.

i don't think anyone wants them held in asia more than half the time, but the way things are going, what can you do?

[Sir Rols]

The IOC shoud have been more insistent with the Koreans about using the Nagano bobsled course for 2018. They should have insisted on setting the precedent and setting the example.

[zekekelso]

1 hour ago, Sir Rols said:

The IOC shoud have been more insistent with the Koreans about using the Nagano bobsled course for 2018. They should have insisted on setting the precedent and setting the example.

Me? I think the IOC needs to sends less time telling host cities what to do, not more. If you goal is to encourage more cities to bid, the precedent you want to set is not, "the IOC will force you to do things you don't want to do."

[Sir Rols]

14 minutes ago, zekekelso said:

Me? I think the IOC needs to sends less time telling host cities what to do, not more. If you goal is to encourage more cities to bid, the precedent you want to set is not, "the IOC will force you to do things you don't want to do."

To be fair, they made the suggestion too late, when the Koreans said they'd already started the course. But it would have been doing the Koreans, and the legacy reputation of the Games, a favour if they'd made a quiet suggestion during the bid phase that they wouldn't mark them down if they used Nagano's.

Supposedly, that's what the Agenda 2020 process should be facilitating.

[Lord David]

Make it a week longer to increase viability and give more flexibility (especially to the additional sports added for 2020) and lower the capacity requirements for venues.

[baron-pierreIV]

Surely, there can't be a permanent red light district.  So that too will have to rotate amongst the 6 continents.  

[Michelle]

The empty stadiums, other than at events where Brazil has chances is quite awful - visually for the hosts.

The athletics stadium yesterday morning, evening and seemingly today are nothing short of embarrassing.

Rio folk, these are YOUR GAMES. Its not all about winning. Get out and support the athletes, or your games will be forever remembered as the empty games.

 

Terrible stuff.

[Rob2012]

32 minutes ago, Michelle said:

The empty stadiums, other than at events where Brazil has chances is quite awful - visually for the hosts.

The athletics stadium yesterday morning, evening and seemingly today are nothing short of embarrassing.

Rio folk, these are YOUR GAMES. Its not all about winning. Get out and support the athletes, or your games will be forever remembered as the empty games.

 

Terrible stuff.

You tell 'em Michelle!