
Why no one wants to host the 2022 olympics - tormeh
https://sports.yahoo.com/news/why-no-one-wants-to-host-the-2022-olympics-225450509.html?soc_src=mediacontentstory
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danielweber
"IOC members will be received with a smile on arrival at hotel"

I thought this just descriptive, but (allowing for translation) it's the IOC's
own words:

[http://whitelines.com/news/norway-withdraws-
bid-2022-winter-...](http://whitelines.com/news/norway-withdraws-
bid-2022-winter-olympics.html#jiHbrqHoLOtYM5gx.99)

~~~
brianbreslin
This one particularly stuck out "Traffic rules and traffic lights must be
adjusted so that the Olympic traffic is prioritised. Meanwhile other traffic
should be limited; IOC proposes closing schools and encouraging the local
people to take holidays."

who do they think they are? the pope? Obama doesn't get schools closed for
him. Does Putin?

~~~
anonymfus
For Putin and other VIPs Russian police usually just removes all other traffic
and pedestrians from streets and roads, ever ambulance cars.

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxGXT2b0W2A](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxGXT2b0W2A)

[http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=кортеж+скорая](http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=кортеж+скорая)

Most ridiculous Putin's requirement is to weld all manhole covers.

In 2013 Putin decided that he dislikes drivers' booing and started to fly to
Kremlin by helicopter. To build new landing site he removed huge part of
Taynitsky Garden.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taynitsky_Garden](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taynitsky_Garden)

[http://i.imgur.com/bUuwmp4.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/bUuwmp4.jpg)

~~~
vraid
Manhole covers are welded shut where Obama vists aswell, it's not like Putin
is crazier than the rest of them.

------
Sambdala
Good. The IOC has always rubbed me the wrong way as well as the fetishisation
of the Olympics to the point where a country/city is willing to sink ungodly
amounts of negative ROI money into a bunch of permanent infrastructure with a
temporary purpose.

~~~
electromagnetic
I think the biggest issue is big cities have most of this infrastructure in
place this basically acts as an excuse to do city wide renovations.

The problem is when it's dumped into smaller countries and into small cities
where everything is built for no reason.

Expanding a highway or improving subway systems in a major city like London or
New York is shit the city governments fight over getting done.

A small city building rail connections and expanding highways, building
swathes of luxury condos, etc is destined to collapse the economy. When they
have to sell off condos in the Olympic village for $0.10 on the dollar you
have a cascade effect down the property market. Why by an ordinary condo when
I can get this luxury one no ones buying because everyone who could is now
buying in the Olympic village. Why buy a small house on the edge of town when
I can buy a nice condo downtown that would've been double my price.

The Olympics are an international event. I don't get why it can't be held
_internationally_. Why do we need soccer in the same country as track and
field? Do we have people doing high dive also doing shotput? Is it on a scale
we should even care about if we prevent one Olympian?

It would be more manageable, at less risk of failure and would actually
benefit the cities its in by not overwhelming the infrastructure.

~~~
Mithaldu
> for $0.10 on the dollar

As a sidenote, i really wonder why people keep phrasing it like this. Why
don't you just say:

> for 10%

or

> with a 90% discount

~~~
talmand
One person says six, the other says half-a-dozen.

~~~
pfortuny
You mean 50% say half-a-dozen and the other half say six?

------
julienchastang
For all sorts of reasons (political, financial) the Olympics should be held in
the same location, and that location is Switzerland. Here is a great and
heartbreaking editorial from former rower Charles Banks-Altekruse as to why:

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/opinion/01altekruse.html](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/01/opinion/01altekruse.html)

~~~
bluthru
I like the idea of using Greece every year (like we used to). Their economy
needs the support more than a country that get by on seedy banking practices.

~~~
aikah
The olympics basically ruined Greece.That's not a good idea,unless someone
else pays for it. Olympics were a financial distaster for that country,olympic
installations are basically roting today.

~~~
seizethecheese
It ruined then because the infrastructure was only used once.

------
notatoad
I think the biggest and probably easiest change towards fixing the olympics is
to move the ownership of TV rights from the IOC to the LOC (Local Organizing
Committee). The LOC can pay a franchising fee to the IOC for the use of the
olympic brand, and the IOC can continue to enforce standards and pick a venue
and guide the whole process through, but if the money is actually coming in to
the local organizer instead of getting skimmed off at the top, there's a lot
less opportunity for corruption in the IOC.

------
_nullandnull_
> Aspen, Colo., (complete with bullet train from Denver which has no practical
> use post Olympics)

I live in Colorado and I strongly disagree with this statement. The bullet
train would be extremely practical. In the next couple of years DIA (Denver
airport) will be connected via train to Union Station in downtown Denver.
There is already talk about how easy it would be for tourist to fly into DIA ,
catch the train to Aspen, ski for the day, then catch the train back and stay
in downtown Denver. This would help with traffic on I-70. In regards to the
Olympics being hosted in Aspen or anywhere in Colorado, no thanks.

~~~
jmagoon
Fellow Coloradan-- agreed on the practicality of a mountain train, agreed on
the no Olympics here, ever. It was already voted down once (1976), and I'm
sure it would happen again.

------
Shivetya
They should have expanded beyond the jab at FIFA, I am not sure which is
actually worse but FIFA is probably the worse of the two organizations simply
for what they choose to ignore; namely slave labor in building event areas.

Neither of these organizations would survive a concerted effort on the part of
any larger nation investigating into their finances. Threaten their
livelihood, throw their officials in jail, and/or prevent their movement
across political boundaries. Just blocking TV rights alone may be sufficient
to put neutral members on their boards.

~~~
freehunter
I think the reason the IOC has set themselves up this way is so that it would
create a political incident if anyone tried to hinder them in any way. All the
IOC wants to do is foster peace and goodwill between nations and help these
poor kids realize their dreams! But the lousy [insert country here] are trying
to shut us down!

The IOC thinks they're the UN, with diplomatic immunity and semi-royalty
status. They wouldn't live up to scrutiny, but no one would challenge them
anyway.

------
golemotron
I really dislike this "catty" journalistic style. It reads more like celebrity
gossip than news, and it's becoming more prevalent.

>Oh, sure, president Thomas Bach said reform is needed for the bid process but
this is a guy who spent his time in Sochi clinking champagne glasses with
Vladimir Putin in an effort to help soften Vlad's global image. It worked for
a week or so and Putin sent troops into the Ukraine. (How's that working out
for you, Thomas?)

~~~
tormeh
Maybe it can make more people read news instead of celebrity gossip? If so,
I'm all for it.

------
billpg
The end of the IOC can't happen soon enough. I just wish it could have
happened before the embarrassment of my country licking the IOC boots two
years ago.

You want your own private road lanes in this busy city? Yessir!

------
Yizahi
Good, maybe in future when Europe/US will host winter games they won't
participate in "arms race" for most pompous ceremony. And maybe drop pseudo
marathon altogether - either you can carry Olympic fire from Greece on foot,
without using cars, planes and other interruptions or just don't do it at all.

~~~
ghshephard
While I appreciate the sentiment, carrying " Olympic fire from Greece on foot"
would be challenging for the Olympics held on land masses non-contiguous with
Greece.

~~~
pavlov
The flame carrier can board a ship but he/she has to keep moving on the deck.
That is how the ancient Greeks intended.

~~~
Igglyboo
I don't think the ancient Greeks could have envisioned a world where the
Olympics was played thousands of miles away from Greece and included every
nation on the planet.

~~~
Paradigma11
Most likely Alexander thought of it.

------
HeXetic
It's concerning that so few cities are left in the 2022 games bidding process,
but this article seems to ignore that there are still plenty of interested
bidders for the 2024 summer and 2026 winter games.

While the author's conclusion is not necessarily wrong, this is very much a
case of selective bias.

------
snowwrestler
The Winter Olympics are in trouble in general.

They have now grown so big that you need a city to support all the visitors,
media, athletes, events, etc. But you also need big mountains with reliable
snow.

The combination is hard to find, and it's getting harder every 4 years,
probably due in part to global warming. Across most mountain ranges, permanent
snowpack is shrinking, anomalous warm spells are happening more frequently,
and mountain glaciers are losing mass.

Sochi had snow problems, which was not that surprising given the latitude, but
so did Vancouver--and that was surprising. So did Turin. So that is 12 years
of snow problems at the Winter Olympics.

They need to either shrink the footprint small enough to fit into real high
altitude mountain towns, or give up some snow events. Neither seems likely.

------
chaostheory
If my memory is correct, historically the IOC seems to have always been really
corrupt going as far back as before WWII or even earlier.

The only thing that's interesting to me about this is what has prompted this
change? The Internet (assuming it has created more aware citizens)? Dwindling
budgets? A combination of several factors?

------
fragsworth
Here's a list of things that might make you question the good-will of the
Olympics:

[http://www.businessinsider.com/finances-of-the-
ioc-2012-8?op...](http://www.businessinsider.com/finances-of-the-
ioc-2012-8?op=1)

------
guard-of-terra
"got built in some muddy, bulldozed acreage south of Sochi, Russia, rather
than in Salzburg, Austria, home to Mozart"

You don't actually expect curling to be held directly on Heldenplatz either
way?

------
fleeno
How about we just always have Summer in Athens, and Winter in say, Vancouver.
There, all good.

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dimitrideag
This is interesting, however I was wondering if it is a topic for HN?

"Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic."

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
Artemis2
> some interesting new phenomenon

> On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
> more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
> answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.

This clearly applies to this, as votes have spoken.

~~~
seizethecheese
If votes alone can speak, why are guidelines needed?

------
throw7
I stopped watching the olympics a long time ago. I lied. I tuned in for the
downhill skiing for a bit, but got tired of watching Bodi Miller's girlfriend.

