Unlikely to happen, but it really does seem like it would be best if Rio was given a 8 year postponement to get its act together:
If this took place, would there be another country prepared to take on the Olympics, in say September or October of this year, at the mast moment?
I’m guessing of course, the last 2 hosts: London and Beijing.
Who else?
No, you cannot do it at the last moment. Even if the facilities are still in good shape, you also need to transport and house tens of thousands of athletes, tourists and other people, without just shoving everyone else out of the way.
I’d gladly do away with the current IOC and switch to a sports competition that uses only one or two sites instead of leaving a trail of abandoned infrastructure and terrible laws in its wake, but you’d need to give yourself some time to do it.
The United States could whip these games out … if money was no object … there’d be some hangs along the way but we’ve got all the facilities already … the USA could do it though.
London would probably stand the best chance of hosting the most events to Olympic standard and with sufficient transport and accommodation for athletes.
The knowledge required is still fresh, the majority of the venues still exist and are in use even if they are slightly smaller. Others that aren’t could be found a home in fairly short order.
I don’t think the main challenge for London would be running the events, it would be more problematic to get the worldwide audience into the city and host them there.
The biggest problem with re-using a recent city is that they’re the ones who know best just how not worth it the Games are. Fool them once, fool them twice, shame, etc.
Probably any large western city could manage it. It might not be done as comfortably as the IOC would ideally like, but there are a dozen North American cities with venues for four major league sports teams (granted, some of those share a venue between two teams) and most of them, simply by virtue of being large cities, have transportation, communications and hospitality infrastructure that will suit in a pinch.
What’s not worth it about the Olympics is building a bunch of single use buildings. Being able to reuse 100% of the buildings would put the Olympics into a huge money maker for the host city. Basically their only expense will be the direct costs of having all of those people and I have no doubt the tourists spend more money then that.
You really don’t need to hold the events in a single city–since probably 99% or so of the people who watch them do so via television.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but for the most part the venues will be ready in Rio. Seems to me all the bad press is coming from the outdoor aquatic events; sailing, skulls, triathlon … specifically running these events in Rio’s sewage treatment facility.
I understand this doesn’t address the issues of a government in free-fall, Them the People rioting in the streets and what appears to be a complete lack of police protection.
If you ask me, the death of the Olympics would be a very good thing for everyone. It’s a grossly expensive, overly political, corruption-rife excuse for contractors and real estate developers to make huge money off of taxpayers. It diverts a lot of money away from other sports into Olympic sports. The introduction of professional athletes makes it a bit of a joke anyway.
Sure, it’s fun to watch for a couple of weeks, but the costs are way too high. The expensive specialized venues get abandoned after the games are over, and the cities that host them generally wind up with a fiscal disaster on their hands afterwards. But the politicians still push hard to get them, because they want the status and control over all that money. It’s the taxpayers who end up being screwed.
There will always be a mark city for the Olympic Games.
This is what I was thinking. You could still have the Olympic Games without having The Olympics take over a whole city. A lot of the logistical and financial nightmare comes from having everything descend on one city, but there’s no reason why the Olympic swimming events have to be held down the street from the track and field events.
True, though I think if you spread them out then the whole thing will become much less of an ‘event’ and would get much less attention, even to folks watching on TV. I’d be okay with that. I’m with Sam Stone–it would probably be a good thing if they ended.
Soccer and sailing events already take place elsewhere.
It seems to me that splitting the winter and summer Olympics into one every other year instead of both every four years took away a lot of the heft of the Olympics. Now, it’s just a not uncommon sporting event. Boring.
The TV ratings would suggest it was probably a good move, though. They’re rolling in more money than ever.
The problem Sam refers to would happen no matter how to split them up. All evidence indicates that it leaves the host city with a herd of white elephants.
The only reason that is the case is since asking for huge job-creating investments in new and usually unneeded infrastructure is often the *quo quid pro * for people agreeing to a bid in the first place.
Compare with smaller games, such as the Commonwealth and Asian Games, which see less unnecessary spending and often leave positive legacies. The 2002 Manchester games have seen investments in infrastructure which ultimately helped UK athletes improve their standings.
The simple answer is that most large cities World over could easily host the games with nothing more than some modifications and up gradation of existing infrastructure, but well then you won’t get political approval for the Olympics unless you agree to spend huge amounts spending money on the local economy, so its a vicious cycle.
Won’t somebody think of the poor, sex-crazed athletes in the Olympic Village? If you spread the games out all over the world, you’ll cut out all the rampant humping.
They should only breed with their own kind.