Last night, it occured to me that if Austin hosted the Olympics, the opening ceremonies would somehow involve Leslie, our favorite homeless drag queen who ran for mayor. On his bike.
How about your city?
First, I think the 12000 people who live here would feel a little overwhelmed.
Afterwards…the focus would be on Sternwheelers. It’s the symbol for Marietta and we have the annual festival here as well.
I guess we’ll find out in 2012 
Well, if Yucaipa hosted the Summer Games, we would release chickens instead of doves. The shooting competition can take place outside the various meth labs in the area. Most of the track events could be staged in San Bernardino, where thety would take on a “Survivor”-like quality, ie whoever survives the run gets the gold. 
Nicky Webster and the Victa from memory.
“Take that, San Francisco!”
… it wouldn’t be the Winter Games. 
Perhaps we’d have the Lizard Man make an appearance? Introduce catfish tickling as an exhibition sport?
Oh, wait. We’d never host the games, because the University runs all other athletic programs out of town. Take that, minor league baseball!
Dick Lamm would have to die and be buried, so that he could commence spinning in his grave.
We’ve got the 2010 Winter Games. In Whistler.
I’m fairly confident that our opening ceremonies will be distinguished by the marijuana smoke drifting over the assembled crowd like it was a Dead concert, or something.
Pass the torch on the left hand side, dude.
Vancouver and Whistler. :smack:
We had the Olympics here in 2002. But the mascots we used were not local icons, just made up for the Olympics to represent the state industries.
If Spokane hosted the Olympics, first and foremost Seattle would have a conniption fit and probably implode.
The local government would overspend to accomodate the needed stadiums, etc., and the next 10 years would be spent in various court battles, largely at the taxpayer’s expense, determining who was at fault and who siphoned money from whom. Sort of like what happened with the parking garage downtown.
Millions upon millions of viewers worldwide would all, at one point or another during the broadcast, think to themselves, “God damn, that’s a lot of evergreen trees.”
I’d get arrested for harrassing women’s volleyball teams with constant invitations back to my apartment.
If Las Vegas hosted the Olympics…well, you know the opening show would be spectacular, but most likely banned on televisions in 90% of all countries…but the torch would simply be the forests of California in the background - huge flames fanned by the Santa Ana winds. The smoke could be a bit of hindrance…
And if it were the winter games, we do have Mt. Charleston with some nice snow and skiing only 45 minutes from The Strip, however, it is a two lane road to get up there and room for maybe 19 spectators and two cameras once you got everything set up.
And if it were the summer games, it would be sunny and bright so the cameras could get a good view of the 3,000 ambulances hauling off the limp bodies of athletes who passed out in the 120 degree temperatures during the events.
Closing ceremonies at both events would probably be a bit muted.
BTW…what disco drag queen picked out the music for the opening events in Toreno? The USA came thisclose to arriving on stage to the song YMCA…
No we wouldn’t. We’d be glad we don’t have to put up with the throngs of tourists and all the traffic hassels associated the Olympics would cause.
After all, we’re the ones who didn’t want the Seattle Center to become Disneyland North when the city hired consultants associated with Disney (Imagineering, I believe) to spruce up the place and generate more income. They have spruced it up somewhat but it’s pretty much the same as it was during the '62 World’s Fair. We like it that way.
One major event every century or so is fine with the majority of us. We don’t need the bother.
Sure, some of the city council and merchants may see dollar signs when discussing the possibility of the Olympics coming here and may be jealous if Spokane was selected but the rest of us, meh!
Melbourne hosted the Olympics back in 1956. I wasn’t born then. We’ve got the Commonwealth Games happening in just over a month. I’d rather stick myself with pins than endure it. :eek:
Gawd, it’s bad enough when we have the Aus Open groupies or the Grand Prix pricks…I cannot begin to imagine how much of a disaster the Games are going to cause to my normally sedate lifestyle.
Fuck’em. I’m going to be an anti-embassador for my city and try to be as obnoxious and fulminating as I possibly can. That should do the trick…yes?
BTW…if you are getting serious about cities that have hosted the Olympics, here are my memories of the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
Sorry man. People like Australians too much.* Even when you go out of your way to be nasty, we just think its “colourful.”
“And then one of the guys at the bar said, ‘Belt up or bugger off, you pack o’ gallahs. I swear, if you don’t quit your jibbering and rack off in short order, I’ll put the wind up you. What are you grinning at? I’ll job you in the knackers, you spacker.’ It was priceless.”
“Lovely people, Australians.”
“Aren’t they?”
*Except Steve Irwin. That hoser should take off.
If the Olympics came to Hanover, the opening ceremonies would have to feature dancing pretzels and potato chips, with Utz, Snyder’s, Renovah, and Martin’s all located here.
I always thought Honolulu would be a really good place to hold the summer Olympics what with the nearly perfect weather, lots of hotel space and a really neat native culture. Having to beat out other US cities though would be exceptionally difficult. In fact I’d say just shy of impossible. Probably just as well since it would be so easy for them to botch it atrociously.
But if we did the torch would probably go from island to island by canoe. They’d probably try to pass it briefly to a longboarder on Waikiki for the photo-op. They’d probably start the ceremonies with the Hawaiian creation story and some stuff about Pele. Then bring in some modern stuff probably showing the introduction of other ethnicities to the islands. Start with the Missionaries then definitely some Japanese stuff. Maybe Chinese, Filipino, Portuguese or Samoan stuff as well. I’m sure everyone will want to be involved. I’ll probably be asleep before they get to Pele though, real hula just puts me to sleep.
Expect lots of talk about Duke Kahanamoku.
Hmm, I live in Waikiki. I’d probably want to skip town while it’s here. My work commutes are bad enough as it is.
The only people who like Aussies are those who don’t live next door to them (or in Bondi ). I kid! We love our G’Day neighbours.
Auckland will never have the Olympics but we had the Commonwealths. I was a we young thing but from memory it as all jolly good. The opening ceremony was very memorable. Melbourne will do a spectacular job.
Olympics are interesting. I can’t wait to see how the Chinese alphabet affects the country order. Italian was fun…Korea with a ‘C’, Japan with a ‘G’, Hungary with a ‘U’ and USA became SUA.
In Chinese, New Zealand may be first. Who knows