Beijing is now the only city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
Los Angeles should have all the existing facilities for the indoor events and there are plenty of mountains in Southern California. Are the mountains sufficient to host the skiing, bobsled and luge events?
I suppose in theory it could work.
On a more serious note, I’d think Denver would be especially well positioned to host both Summer and Winter games, if that becomes a thing. Lots of ski resorts, etc… are within an hour. The only question I’d have is whether or not there is enough lake/river of the right type to host sailing/rowing type events.
I suppose there are sufficient winter sport mountains in Southern California (Big Bear?), but they would be a good 3 hours away from Los Angeles proper. So, it could be doable, but just a bit of a stretch.
I don’t think that’s a problem; in many host cities some events are at some distance from the main hub.
Grand Lake just southwest of Rocky Mountain National Park
Agree. It’s an interesting idea to explore. What winter Olympic events really require the mountains? Anything with skis, the bobsled and luge courses, snowboarding events. What else? ISTM most of the winter Olympic sports can be done inside arenas, no?
And yes, I think Big Bear would be able to accommodate the outdoor events, media, and crowds with some infrastructure upgrades. But, you may not be able to count on lots of natural snow there (not that it stopped Beijing).
Here’s a list of the current Winter Games sports (source: Wikipedia). Here’s how they break down (note that many of the categories below encompass numerous individual events):
Indoor
Outdoor
If distance isn’t a real obstacle, what’s been kept up from 1960 in Tahoe?
Nothing. There is literally nothing of scale there from 1960, other then the Olympic rings, and the mountain runs. And it is now called Palisades Tahoe.
It might not be quite as simple as you think. With men’s and women’s hockey, figure skating, short-track speed skating, and curling they’d probably need four ice rinks for the duration of the Games. And the traditional speed skating has been indoors for the last few decades, and that’s a 400m track; not sure if L.A. has a facility for that already.
As for the outdoor events, you also need level snowy ground for the cross-country skiing and biathlon.
Denver was awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics, but withdrew as host city. On somewhat short notice, those Games were moved to Innsbruck, Austria, which still had most of the needed facilities from hosting the Games only 12 years earlier.
This list from Wikipedia indicates that there are only currently two functioning indoor 400m speed skating tracks in the U.S.: one at West Allis, WI (just outside of Milwaukee), and the other in Kearns, UT (just outside of Salt Lake City). There are also outdoor 400m tracks at Lake Placid, NY, and in Minneapolis/St.Paul area.
Given the size of those rinks, a typical indoor arena (used for sports like hockey and basketball) likely would not have nearly enough floor space for such a track.
Bobsled, luge, and skeleton all could use the same facility, perhaps. Biathlon, XC skiing, and nordic combined could use the same course, maybe. Ski jumping needs a special, one-purpose facility, and snowboarding has it’s own special needs (half-pipe). Skiing and downhill snowboarding events could share, I would guess.
I guess one of the problems of course is that facilities that exist might not have the needed tech infrastructure (or spectator accomodations, but that seems less important these days). I’d be surprised if the LA area didn’t have a curling rink, for instance, (heck, Albuquerque has one), but I would be surprised if it was cheaper to retrofit one, even temporarily, than to temporarily build something. And some of the stuff couldn’t be immediately used for other reasons–can’t just immediately use the Forum and the Honda Center, for example, since the NHL uses smaller ice.
I think it’s pretty clear that the only real issue is the long track speed skating venue.
Yeah, you couldn’t fit a 400m track into a basketball or hockey arena, but there might be some other place in L.A. that could work. You need room for a big track, but not a lot of seats for spectators. Maybe one of the universities has an indoor training facility for football of soccer that could be pressed into service with a temporary skating track. Expensive to set up, but probably cheaper than a dedicated facility that wouldn’t see much use after the Games.
They already do, which is a good thing; sliding tracks are expensive. They’re built with separate start houses for luge and bobsled, and the track merges together.
It does, just finished last year. No room for spectators, though. Using a hockey rink for curling is done all the time at big tournaments. I think you can fit four curling sheets on an NHL rink, even.
Looking at the list on Wikipedia, it looks like the Sochi track is going to likely be converted into a convention center. So possibly you convert the LA Convention center into a track for the time being.
San Bernardino could certainly use the tourist dollars that would be deposited there for an LA Winter Games.
This is the main road to Big Bear from LA:
Yes, there are spots where CA-18 is two lanes in both directions, but there are many other spots where this is what you get.
Another thought might be the old Navy blimp hangars in Tustin, though it sounds like at least one of the two hangars is not in good shape.
I watched someone die on that road when I was 17.