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Predictions For The Short-list


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Anyone up making predicting the short-list ? I've posted mine on the other topic , but here is it again

Intertesting . I think these 3 cities will easily get short-listed

[*]ATHENS, Greece

[*]MOSCOW, Russia

[*]TURIN, Italy

With these 3 fighting for the 2 remaining spots

[*]SINGAPORE, Singapore

[*]KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia

[*]BELGRADE, Serbia

I don't see the following cities being short-listed ,

[*]ALGIERS, Algeria - Lack of reconitition and World-class facilities

[*]BANGKOK, Thailand - With the recent political situation , I don't think so.

[*]DEBRECEN, Hungary - Where in the world it is ? I have hardly heard of it. Should have gone with Budapest

[*]GUATEMALA CITY 1 word , POVERTY

[*]POZNAN, Poland - Rather small for a worldwide event. Try Warsaw !

Does Algiers , Poznan & Debrecen even have enough hotel rooms ?

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I agree. Even though Belgrade just hosted the 9th EYOF and will host the 2009 Summer Universiade (though the host city will already have been chosen by then), they had many organizational problems envolving accomodation and food & beverage; that's why I wouldn't put it on the "easily shortlisted" group, either.

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I think the top 5 will be :

Athens, Greece

Moscow, Russia

Turin, Italy

Singapore, Singapore..

And the last spot will be between :

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Belgrade, Serbia

But Belgrade have bigger chance, coz I think, Will IOC put 2 cites from south east asia together in the top 5 ? I think they won't do it... :D

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Given the fact that the Malaysian Olympic Committee has publicly stated it was bidding relutanctly, I don't think KL will / should be shortlisted.

Besides the obvious top 3 (Athens, Moscow, Torino), I would bet on Belgrade and Singapore or Bangkok.

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How stupid is that: submitting a bid and publicly stating it was a reluctant decision?! They should DEFINITELY be eliminated. :wacko:

No kidding, there is obviously some power issues in pertaining to the Kuala Lumpur bid. the OCM seems to have been black balled into bidding for the games. I wonder what one city can hold over a national olympic committee.

I noticed that Athens wasn't listed among the cities in the last news item (however only 10 cities are listed when it states there are 11) hopefully it's just a typo.

My short list:

Athens

Moscow

Bangkok (they've hosted the asian games several times and seem to be the city to go when disputes arise for the games)

Poznan (from the info on wikipedia it is a qualified city)

Guatumala City (they are the only "american" city so just by that i'll guess they will be shortlisted.

In the end Athens will win for two reasons 1st they just had the summer olympics 3 years ago therefore have the facilities. 2nd it's greece and they deserve to win by that fact alone. Moscow should be voted out because they have the WOG in 2012. My vote would be for Bangkok to host in 2014 then the fight for 2018 can be between australia and an american city (North America if Chicago loses 2016 or a South American Country if chicago wins 2016)

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I agree. Even though Belgrade just hosted the 9th EYOF and will host the 2009 Summer Universiade (though the host city will already have been chosen by then), they had many organizational problems envolving accomodation and food & beverage; that's why I wouldn't put it on the "easily shortlisted" group, either.

What were these issues? I don't really remember any problems with accomodation/food/drink as you state?

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Well if Abuja wins the Commonwealth Games bid, nothing will surprise me!

I don't know enough information on Poznan or Debrecen to be able to comment on these cities.

Guatemala - no way, it ain't gonna happen. I think this is a bid to satisfy Willi Kalschmitt's ego, as he even mentioned at the Session he would do everything to get it at the Session. This is a totally different event from the Session though, which was simply hosted on a street between two hotels. Read any government travel advice on Guatemala relating to crime or transport and you will know what I mean.

Athens & Turin should get short listed, although I would be surprised if they actually won. Athens could certainly do with the games to uses its venues, which are certainly under used. Torino hosted a good winter Olympic/World University Games - the main problems with 2006 (doping, finances) should be less prevalent in this sort of event.

KL could have a good shot at it, wouldn't necessarily win - although a lack of support might be seen as a lack of confidence and not see it on the short list.

Singapore is certainly a favourite - although they do have a habit of bidding for events and dropping out (at a variety of stages), but they should easily short list and a favourite to win.

Bangkok should make the short list, it has a good shot after a successful World University Games, I wouldn't say it's my favourite to win, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I don't really know too much about Algiers, but they seemed to host the All Africa Games successfully, a games which seemed to be well received by the Olympic Family. I would say borderline as to whether they will short list though.

Belgrade is another favourite to win - its quite a good city to host such an event, they have the experience, infrastructure, decent venues etc - a well put together bid could pull it off for them.

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What were these issues? I don't really remember any problems with accomodation/food/drink as you state?

Some delegations present at the recent EYOF (including the Portuguese, that's why I mentioned these issues) were accomodated in rooms with hardly good conditions, mostly concerning space and air conditioning (Belgrade was under a heat wave that time), and many athletes complained they couldn't sleep at night because of the intense heat felt. The water supply was another problem, with athletes having their water pratically rationed during their trainings, under temperatures of 86 ºF and higher.

It's not something that can't be dealt with, but the EYOF is pratically an YOG of its own with about the same number of athletes. But this time it's an IOC official event they're bidding so they have to be more strict about these things. If Belgrade lands the YOG, it will have the Universiade as a major test event.

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Some delegations present at the recent EYOF (including the Portuguese, that's why I mentioned these issues) were accomodated in rooms with hardly good conditions, mostly concerning space and air conditioning (Belgrade was under a heat wave that time), and many athletes complained they couldn't sleep at night because of the intense heat felt. The water supply was another problem, with athletes having their water pratically rationed during their trainings, under temperatures of 86 ºF and higher.

It's not something that can't be dealt with, but the EYOF is pratically an YOG of its own with about the same number of athletes. But this time it's an IOC official event they're bidding so they have to be more strict about these things. If Belgrade lands the YOG, it will have the Universiade as a major test event.

All delegations had the same standard of accomodation, it wasn't just "some". It is true that rooms did not have air conditioning (it was student accommodation) and temperatures did actually reach 46'C (115'F), however, whilst I do not know how the situation was in Lignano 2005, there was not any air conditioning in the Cite Universitaire accommodation in Paris (2003). It was unfortunate that there was a heatwave across Europe at the time of the Festival, the temperatures in Belgrade in July are said to average 16/27'C Min/Max.

With water, again this is normal in this competition. I believe the daily allowance per athlete was one bottle a day plus 1.5 litres during train/competition. Again, I think I remember this was the same in Paris (and Paris had other issues too, such as not delivering water to certain satellite hotels). It was also the same with the water in Jaca, if I remember. I really don't remember many athletes/officials having major problems with this and there were also plenty of opportunity to refill water. I do believe that this was also stipulated in the contract that each NOC had to make with the Belgrade Organising Committee (which covers meals, transport, accommodation, water, participation fees etc etc).

There was issue with water when the President of the Portuguese NOC wanted a bottle of water but nobody would get him one. I don't enough about this incident to comment on it, but I fail to see how such an issue would renegade the possibility that Belgrade could host such an event - little things like this happen all the time.

I do believe that there were some pest control issues with the Portuguese team's accommodation, again this could have also been due to the excessive heat. I am not saying that Belgrade 2007 was perfect (it would have helped if the communication had been better - both signage and the competence of certain staff in charge of giving information to NOCs were below standard), and I'm not saying that I support (or do not support) their 2010 YOG bid, but I do see them as a very strong candidate in the bidding competition.

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First of all, thank you for the in-depth explanation. :) You seem to have been very much inside the EYOF corridors.

All the situations I mentioned were written in the local media, so one can never be completely sure about the real magnitude of things they write about. Your deep knowledge is once again shown, since I had forgotten all about the "bugs" that once in a while paid visits to our athletes; but, as you said, all these problems (climatization, water supply, insects) were potentialized by the heat-wave that, from your words, seems to be unusual in Belgrade at that time (though, I believe it will become more and more often). I also did not know about such similar conditions having happened in Paris 2003, so it seems it's not unique to the Belgrade organization.

Actually, I do believe Belgrade has great chances to get the YOG, if they succeeded in landing the 2007 Summer EYOF and 2009 Summer Universiade. It was just these (now cleared) minor problems that turned me a bit skeptical. ;)

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Hmm interesting, most peeps here seem to think Turin (Torino) will make it to the shortlist. Perhaps, sure, it has the experience and recognition and what not, but the main concern IMO is the main (Athletic) stadium.

For those that aren't aware, Stadio delle Alpi (Built for the 1990 World Cup), is currently being configured to be an all rectangle stadium (smaller capacity, removal of track)... so can the Olympic stadium be used with an athletics track? Or will a new stadium be built? Or will a smaller existing venue be refurbished/used? I suppose this will be Torino's Achilles Heel... :unsure:

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First of all, thank you for the in-depth explanation. :) You seem to have been very much inside the EYOF corridors.

All the situations I mentioned were written in the local media, so one can never be completely sure about the real magnitude of things they write about. Your deep knowledge is once again shown, since I had forgotten all about the "bugs" that once in a while paid visits to our athletes; but, as you said, all these problems (climatization, water supply, insects) were potentialized by the heat-wave that, from your words, seems to be unusual in Belgrade at that time (though, I believe it will become more and more often). I also did not know about such similar conditions having happened in Paris 2003, so it seems it's not unique to the Belgrade organization.

Actually, I do believe Belgrade has great chances to get the YOG, if they succeeded in landing the 2007 Summer EYOF and 2009 Summer Universiade. It was just these (now cleared) minor problems that turned me a bit skeptical. ;)

You're very welcome - I was present in Belgrade as a volunteer flitting between the NOC info desk and protocol/VIP area at the table tennis venue. I was an NOC Attache in Paris (for those who don't know, an Attache is a person who, working for the organising committee, acts as a link between the organising committe and a delegation/team).

The thing is there are (generally) almost always problems at these events - I could give you dirt on the Session in Singapore, Guatemala (although my reasons for downplaying Guatemala's chances are not related to the 'dirt' that I am talking about) and Athens (and for even more dirt on Athens, just ask GB user 'NOC' - he can give you heaps!) but unless these are huge, major issues, or an huge accumilation of issues it would not neccessarily preclude a city from hosting. At the end of the day, it is the membership of the IOC who finally vote - very experienced sports administrators who have attended a plethora of these type of events and know what to expect (which, on many occasions, is "expect nothing"!). Even so, they are well versed in how these event operate and will only rule out a certain city from hosting if they really feel strongly that the issue they would come up again, and cause them too many problems (in comparison with competing cities). Of course, these very experienced sports administrators are also very well connected and may possibly have friends working in one of the bidding committees, and may be swayed to vote a particular way (for example, it is believed that Rene Fasel was a Sochi 2014 supporter due to connections in the IIHF - of which he is president - and that Sir Phil Craven was a supporter of the Salzburg 2014 bid due to a connection in the Wheelchair Basketball family - Craven's main sport - who worked for Salzburg 2014). Members may also be tempted to vote various other ways, be it purely on the technical bid, geopolitics, a simple admiration/dislike of the city, because the President of the other country insulted their culture/cuisine ;) , or even maybe where they/their spouses want to go shopping - who knows!

As well as the IOC membership voting in February (I have to admit, whilst I understand the reasons - time/ cost etc as the IOC members are volunteers, it would be very expensive to have an extraordinary session and the winning city should ideally have three years to prepare - I do have concerns about postal voting, given the potential for lost votes and/ or voting fraud - hopefully this should only be required for the first few editions whilst the timescales needed are caught up with), there is also the short listing in November where the exective board (even more senior members) will determine which cities will be shortlisted. They should ideally only short list a city if they feel that it does not meet the technical requirements to host the event in question, or that the city would be unsuitable for whatever other reason (be it political reasons or whatever). If the city is perfectly capable of hosting a great games, they should generally be short listed.

I cannot speak for Kuala Lumpur, Bangkok, Algiers, Torino etc as I have not attended the respective sports events that they have held over the past decade (although I have heard positive comments about each one), but I would be very careful to rule out a city based on media reports as sometimes what might be common or minor issues can sometimes be either distorted, exagerrated or misunderstood. However this does not mean that I believe such events should be free from media scruitiny - quite the opposite!

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The National stadium won't be open til 2011 . They'll use the Marina Bay floating stadium which has just hosted the National Day Parade . It is located at the heart of the city and seats 27 000. Just behind it , is the Marina Center which has 3 hotels just across the road. Its a world-first . Actually , the stadium platform can be viewing from the hotels & the new Singapore Flyer so the number of people view it will be more than 27000

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The requirement for the number of seats for the YOG track and fields stadium is 10,000 minimum. I suspect Singapore should have no problem finding a 10,000-seater athletics stadium (on the other hand, I cannot see how Marina Bay Staidum could host track&fields).

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Interesting to see how Singapore would bid. Without their main stadium ready by 2010, the next biggest stadium capable of hosting any athletics event has only 6,000 capacity.

See list of Singapore stadiums here: World Stadiums - Stadiums in Singapore

Edited by theone
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