DENVER 2030

[Quaker2001]

3 hours ago, Nacre said:

In fairness part of this is simply the result of demographic and macroeconomic issues in the western world. It was lot easier to spend money on sports venues when 1) a big chunk of the population is the right age to use them, 2) governments aren't spending huge amounts of money on debt servicing, and 3) when sports are one of the biggest forms of entertainment.

Now we have an aging population and will eventually have to raise the retirement age or face economic ruin, Western governments have fallen into a massive hole of debt, and people prefer to spend their free time binging tv shows or playing video games (or wasting their time on online forums!) instead of getting out and exercising.

It's not just that.  A lot of facilities a Winter Olympics brings are of limited use.  So to build new ones in a region where they'll see limited use for competition or training is pretty redundant.  When we're talking about facilities like sliding tracks and ski jumps and speed skating ovals.. does the world need more of those venues for training and competition beyond what's already there?  If I'm a speed skater in North America, I can train in Calgary or in Salt Lake.  Those are world class venues.  So what's the utility in building another?  Ditto in Japan where it's already difficult to attract World Cup events there, although it will probably help for Korea, Japan, and soon China to all have those facilities.

The big issue is that the Winter Olympics have been so many places that at this point, the sensible thing to do is return to where they have already been and use those venues rather than to spend money to build new ones.  And even then, we've seen what happened to the ski jumps in Calgary.  Or the sliding track from Torino.  If it costs more than it's worth to maintain those facilities and they don't get use out of them because there are other places they can do to train and compete, that's where it's a tough sell to spend the money where it might not have been 20-30 years ago.

[baron-pierreIV]

9 minutes ago, Quaker2001 said:

 If I'm a speed skater in North America, I can train in Calgary or in Salt Lake. 

Or @ the Pettit National Ice Center in Milwaukee, which has a fully enclosed 400m speedskating track as well.  

http://thepettit.com/ 

[yoshi]

So is it time for the Winter Olympics to end the idea of a bid process & have a formal host city list & rotation policy? If so, then quite simply - how many, & who?

[Quaker2001]

2 hours ago, yoshi said:

So is it time for the Winter Olympics to end the idea of a bid process & have a formal host city list & rotation policy? If so, then quite simply - how many, & who?

No.  This situation out there isn't so hopeless that the IOC needs to choose X number of cities as permanent hosts.  Not exactly the best time to do that because what city in Europe would be on board with that?  Sure, Salt Lake would probably sign on for that, but don't know who else would?  And even for cities with all the necessary infrastructure, there's still the matter of athlete and media housing that can't exactly be kept on the ready, even if we're only talking for once every 20 years.

[mountainboarder_530@yahoo.]

If that were to pass, Salt Lake City, Sochi, Sapporo, and .......wishful thinking.......Annecy France?  could just rotate.  We are a few "bids" away from that IMO.  

Its gonna come, but I think thatll be in the 2040s.  2030s will probably see the end of the traditional bidding in the winter olympics after that city in central asia finally gets its turnas a host city.  

[FYI]

You must be related to a certain DB. Cuz you two have this awful “fetish” with ‘that central Asian city’.

[FYI]

10 hours ago, mountainboarder_530@yahoo. said:

If that were to pass, Salt Lake City, Sochi, Sapporo, and .......wishful thinking.......Annecy France?  could just rotate.  We are a few "bids" away from that IMO. 

Replace Annecy with Turin, cuz they’re the Salt Lake of Europe!!  They are a recent host & have all the facilities in place, just like Salt Lake is/does. And their mayor was all gung-ho to host again until she frowned about the three-way (lol) with Milan & Cortina.

And in addition to Sapporo & Sochi, add Beijing, Pyeongchang & maybe Nagano to the mix, too. And there you have the most realistic ‘rotation plan’ for about 20 years or so, if such an unlikely game plan ever came out under the dire circumstances the IOC faces these days.

[baron-pierreIV]

2 hours ago, FYI said:

And in addition to Sapporo & Sochi, add Beijing, 

Beijing, though, is far from ideal.  I think it will be the first one where the snow sports is over 100 miles away from the ice cluster.  As you may know, Harbin is really the "winter capital" of China but the good old Commie leaders, of course, don't want any other city (perhaps other than Shanghai, HKG and Beijing) to shine, so they purposely bypassed Harbin even though I think Harbin gives the best Winter Sports Fest atmosphere more than the sterile, federal setting of Beijing.  

[FYI]

The problem with Harbin, though, is that it’s too fricken cold in the winter. The average daily high in Feb. there is 19F & the low is -4F. Whereas Beijing is 41F/22F respectively. I think that’s also why Beijing went with Beijing. 

People were already starting to complain when Pyeongchang was looking to be one of the coldest Winter Olympics in decades. Can just imagine the media storm in a frozen place like Harbin. Many of the foreigners that aren’t use to those type of frigid temps would definitely be b!tching. Even today it’s a very, very cold 9F in Harbin.

[FYI]

..whereas today Beijing is a comfortable, relatively speaking, is 37F.

[Quaker2001]

So does that mean the IOC needs to change the gold medal to the Goldilocks medal?  Not too hot.  Not too cold.  But juuuuuuuuust right.

3 hours ago, FYI said:

Replace Annecy with Turin, cuz they’re the Salt Lake of Europe!!  They are a recent host & have all the facilities in place, just like Salt Lake is/does. And their mayor was all gung-ho to host again until she frowned about the three-way (lol) with Milan & Cortina.

And in addition to Sapporo & Sochi, add Beijing, Pyeongchang & maybe Nagano to the mix, too. And there you have the most realistic ‘rotation plan’ for about 20 years or so, if such an unlikely game plan ever came out under the dire circumstances the IOC faces these days.

No sliding track.  The venue in Cesana was shut down a few years ago citing costs.  Don't believe they ever managed to re-open the venue.  ==

[FYI]

2 minutes ago, Quaker2001 said:

So does that mean the IOC needs to change the gold medal to the Goldilocks medal?  Not too hot.  Not too cold.  But juuuuuuuuust right.

Haha  

3 minutes ago, Quaker2001 said:

No sliding track.  The venue in Cesana was shut down a few years ago citing costs.  Don't believe they ever managed to re-open the venue.  ==

They could still use the one in La Plagne or St. Moritz. Still not that far from Turin.

[Nacre]

18 hours ago, Quaker2001 said:

It's not just that.  A lot of facilities a Winter Olympics brings are of limited use.  So to build new ones in a region where they'll see limited use for competition or training is pretty redundant.

That is certainly true for Olympic level athletes, but it isn't true for people who aren't elite athletes.

For example, Germany supports four bobsledding tracks because there is grassroots support for the sport there. They could make do with only one track, but having four allows for more locals to participate in the sport.

We used to have a ski jump in Washington State that used to be the best in the western half of the US. (Bakke Hill) It was accessible to people across the state, and when it was still in use Washington produced some of the best ski jumpers at the national level. I don't want the Olympics in my state, but if Washington can rebuild Bakke hill and operate it for Calgary's quoted $50 million rebuild +$500,000 subsidy per year then I would like the ski jump rebuilt. Not for the sake of hosting the Ski Jumping World Cup or the Winter Olympic Games. But for the sake of providing athletic venues for winter sports athletes in my home state.

"Sport for sport's sake" seems to be an idea lost between the fools arguing that the Olympics will get a city rich quick and the corrupt sporting administrators who want palaces for their sport built at the cost of local hospitals and schools. Both host cities and the sporting federations need to learn the wisdom of providing reasonable grassroots facilities at modest public subsidy rather than the current "all or nothing" approach.

[Quaker2001]

19 minutes ago, Nacre said:

That is certainly true for Olympic level athletes, but it isn't true for people who aren't elite athletes.

For example, Germany supports four bobsledding tracks because there is grassroots support for the sport there. They could make do with only one track, but having four allows for more locals to participate in the sport.

We used to have a ski jump in Washington State that used to be the best in the western half of the US. (Bakke Hill) It was accessible to people across the state, and when it was still in use Washington produced some of the best ski jumpers at the national level. I don't want the Olympics in my state, but if Washington can rebuild Bakke hill and operate it for Calgary's quoted $50 million rebuild +$500,000 subsidy per year then I would like the ski jump rebuilt. Not for the sake of hosting the Ski Jumping World Cup or the Winter Olympic Games. But for the sake of providing athletic venues for winter sports athletes in my home state.

"Sport for sport's sake" seems to be an idea lost between the fools arguing that the Olympics will get a city rich quick and the corrupt sporting administrators who want palaces for their sport built at the cost of local hospitals and schools. Both host cities and the sporting federations need to learn the wisdom of providing reasonable grassroots facilities at modest public subsidy rather than the current "all or nothing" approach.

Those 4 tracks are already there, though.  2 of them have been around in some form for more than a century.  Königssee recently underwent a renovation in hopes of boosting a Munich bid.  Cost of that was a mere € 21.7 million.  Altenberg has a recent refurbishment of their track ahead of the 2012 World Championships in Luge.  Cost there..  € 1.4 million

So yea, $50 million is a pretty big price tag if the venue won't generate that kind of income.  Why spend all that money there when there's already another ski hill within driving distance from Seattle (Whistler is 4 hours away versus Leavenworth which is 2 1/2 hours away).  Not coincidental that Bakke Hill started to decline in popularity right around the same time that ski resorts in Colorado started to become popular.  If we're talking about building a ski jump just to serve the state of Washington and the surrounding areas, is it really worth the investment when there's another facility nearby?  After all, how much money can be made from a ski jump hill if the initial investment is so steep and the subsidy isn't that cheap either.

I alluded to it in the other thread.. the problem is that many parts of the world have been saturated with these limited use facilities that there's no real utility in building more.  Before 1988, Canada didn't have a sliding track.  There was only 1 ski jump save for a few years with the overlap of Thunder Bay and Revelstoke.  And when they built the speed skating oval in Calgary, does the country need another facility of that caliber for what it would cost?

That's why the solution needs to be using existing venues rather than talking about grassroots efforts to encourage participation in sport.  That often works the first time a country or a region does that.  It's hard to replicate, especially if additional facilities are built and expected to be maintained at a higher level.  If you're asking a city to build a new venue and then they'll be able to publicly subsidize it, then that begs the question of whether or not it's worth the investment in the first place.

[baron-pierreIV]

1 hour ago, FYI said:

The problem with Harbin, though, is that it’s too fricken cold in the winter. The average daily high in Feb. there is 19F & the low is -4F. Whereas Beijing is 41F/22F respectively. I think that’s also why Beijing went with Beijing. 

People were already starting to complain when Pyeongchang was looking to be one of the coldest Winter Olympics in decades. Can just imagine the media storm in a frozen place like Harbin. Many of the foreigners that aren’t use to those type of frigid temps would definitely be b!tching. Even today it’s a very, very cold 9F in Harbin.

Ah. wasn't aware of the real conditions in Harbin.  But I think Lillehammer was super-cold.  Wouldn't Are-Falun & Sigulda (close to the North Sea) be equally frigid vs. Cortina which I guess is shielded by the Dolomites? 

[FYI]

1 hour ago, baron-pierreIV said:

Ah. wasn't aware of the real conditions in Harbin.  But I think Lillehammer was super-cold.  Wouldn't Are-Falun & Sigulda (close to the North Sea) be equally frigid vs. Cortina which I guess is shielded by the Dolomites? 

The average temp in Lillehammer in February is 28F/17F. For the 1994 Opening ceremonies, it was 12F (the coldest Winter Olympics on record). In Falun it’s 31F/16F & in Cortina it’s 36F/20F.

Right before PyeongChang 2018 concerns were that the Games were going to be bitterly cold, as cold as Lillehammer 1994. But the temps in Pyeongchang warmed up to average that time of year just right before the start of the Games.

So Harbin is the clear winner when it comes to super cold than any of those sites. Looks like that’s why the Ice Festival is held there in Feb. The sculptures would melt in Beijing.  

[mountainboarder_530@yahoo.]

21 hours ago, FYI said:

You must be related to a certain DB. Cuz you two have this awful “fetish” with ‘that central Asian city’.

 

you keep plugging away at it, and I keep using it to egg you guys on, im mostly here for the lulz about it and seeing how hard it triggers people.  I am obviously more interested in the serious stuff.  Lets agree on the SLC-Sapporo double thing happening, shall we?

[FYI]

1 hour ago, mountainboarder_530@yahoo. said:

Lets agree on the SLC-Sapporo double thing happening, shall we?

Oh ok, cool! But a certain “other poster” around here isn’t going to agree with US, though! 

[Quaker2001]

53 minutes ago, mountainboarder_530@yahoo. said:

you keep plugging away at it, and I keep using it to egg you guys on, im mostly here for the lulz about it and seeing how hard it triggers people.  I am obviously more interested in the serious stuff.  Lets agree on the SLC-Sapporo double thing happening, shall we?

Nope.  Just remember.. he thinks it *might* happen.  He's not predicting it will happen.

[baron-pierreIV]

9 hours ago, FYI said:

 For the 1994 Opening ceremonies, it was 12F (the coldest Winter Olympics on record).  

It sure showed.  I often wonder if anyone kept statistics on how many people get sick after attending Winter Opening Ceremonies -- and then of course, the contagious-wave effect afterwards when a cold gets passed on to secondary subjects.  I guess that record makes the theft of THE SCREAM that night in Oslo all the more remarkable!  

[Maximf83]

https://twitter.com/LetDenverVote

 

The opposition have began

[FYI]

No surprise there! The USOC will stay far away then.

[Maximf83]

13 minutes ago, FYI said:

No surprise there! The USOC will stay far away then.

I'm sure SLC will have some as well

[FYI]

They’ve already done some early polling in SLC, & 89% of respondants are in support of another Games there. Not to mention that all local & state government are also in agreement. Things that Colorado can’t say at this point in time. Instead, you already have people speaking up against it there.

[Maximf83]

1 minute ago, FYI said:

They’ve already done some early polling in SLC, & 89% of respondants are in support of another Games there. Not to mention that all local & state government are also in agreement. Things that Colorado can’t say at this point in time. Instead, you already have people speaking up against it there.

LA had same numbers and you saw that the anti groups claimed those as fake and I put the polls that they "conducted"