There was just a story this morning about a curling facility that opened recently in L.A. Can’t remember exactly where.
ETA: Vernon. Where the meat packing plants are?
Hmm, ignoring other infrastructure issues, Wisconsin has:
Speed skiing rink
Ski jump places
Curling venues
Some downhill ski places, but not sure any are good enough
XC Ski race places (The American Birkebeiner)
Hockey rinks
No bobsled/luge/skeleton that I am aware of
Brian
It amazes me a bit that Lake Placid, New York hosted the winter games most recently only 42 years ago. It’s a fairly small town.
That is a speed SKATING facility. The point is that there are quite a a few winter sport venues in Wisconsin (understandably).
Brian
Mammoth Lakes and mountain is a six hour drive northeast of L.A. It can host all the skiing and outdoor events. Everything else could be held in greater L.A. Honda Center, Staples Center, Long Beach Arena, Pauley Pavilion-UCLA, Galen Center-USC, Ontario’s Arena are all good facilities. The LAFC soccer stadium (Banc of ??? Stadium) would be good for the opening-closing ceremonies.
True. And Mammoth has a commercial airport as well.
Though only one runway. The airport gets weathered in enough that commercial traffic has shifted to somewhat nearby Bishop.
Brian
At that point, you might as well just call it the California Games and use facilities in San Francisco and Sacramento, as well…although, you’d be missing out on some perfect venues and accommodations in nearby Las Vegas.
That’s not a problem. The IOC changed the rules to allow joint bids by two countries, so that Norway and Sweden considered bidding together. (That they dropped out of bidding for the current games should give you some idea of how bad the problems have gotten.)
But hasn’t that been the routine since 1976 at least?
Developing counties want the Olympics to show off their country. Meanwhile, developed countries face tremendous political pressure any time they attempt to host an Olympics. London 2012 was a smashing success but it wasn’t a smooth path to get there.
It’s really mostly been an issue over the past decade or so, that fewer and fewer cities in developed countries have been willing to put forth serious bids. During the bidding process for the 2024 Summer Games, after Budapest, Hamburg, and Rome all withdrew their bids, the IOC was left with only Paris and Los Angeles as bidders; they wound up simultaneously awarding the 2024 Summer Games to Paris, and the 2028 Games to Los Angeles.
Six hours??? What do you drive? A VW Microbus missing two spark plugs??? 
You need to budget a one hour stop for pastrami on rye at Schat’s Bakery in Bishop. The line is usually really long.
I only stop for gas!
Funny you should mention this. I ate at the one up north just this Wed. Way overpriced, and way overrated. Bishop did have a pretty tasty Chinese Buffet, but no idea if its still around.
Japan hosted the most recent summer games, and South Korea hosted the winter games before that; both are developed countries. But yes, between the actual costs of hosting and the hassle of doing so, it’s much less popular than it used to be.
It goes in waves. In 1984 Los Angeles was the only bidder for the summer games, primarily because of the problems with Montreal 1976. But L.A. proved successful, so for a few decades many cities bid for it.
Yeah, I can I understand after the Montreal debacle why countries would be reluctant. 80 and 84 was just refighting the Cold War via the Olympics and 88 was South Korea’s coming out party
Continuing in that vein, 1992 was a gift for IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was from Barcelona.
What I find hilarious about this now is that all the stuff that was in California Games would have never been considered Olympics worthy in 1987, and now we’ve got half the events in the Olympics.
Yeah plus they had to deal with that giant alligator up there in the lake too, and then later the giant alligator fought some anacondas because they ran out of ideas.