Now that Rio will be hosting the Games, Africa is the only inhabited continent left w/o an Olympiad. What cities coul plausibly bid? My guesses:
Cairo
Johannesburg
Cape Town
Nairobi
Any others you can imagine?
South Africa is the only African country I would for an instant consider right now. Egypt is too unstable and Kenya’s too poor. The other stable countries with money, like Botswana and Gabon, are just too small.
SA pulled off the World Cup pretty nicely. Johannesburg is a huge, modern city, and could surely pull off a Games if the South African government decided to try.
Cape Town is also a large, lovely city, but it would be strange, IMHO, to put the Games in a country’s second greatest city. I always found it bizarre they put a Games in Atlanta, for instance, but not New York City. It’s gotta be Johannesburg.
South Africa is substantially less developed than Russia, Mexico, or Brazil, and somewhat less developed than China. Thanks to AIDS, their human development index has declined over the last twenty years. So no, I’d think they have more pressing national priorities than hosting the Olympics.
My guess is that it’d have to be a country with enough wealth to absorb the, what is it, $40-50 billion dollar hit an Olympics costs to put on? Oil wealthy countries might be able to do it—Nigeria, Angola, maybe Cote D’ Ivoire, in addition to the already mentioned SA come to mind—but they’re still too unstable for the IOC to consider them, I’d think. Not to mention the brutal climate equatorial countries have for outdoor sports. What’re the hottest Summer Olympics that’ve been held? The closest to the Equator? I’d think India or Malaysia/Indonesia would get a Games before Africa.
IMO, for the Summer Olympics to be held in South Africa, the time of year it is held in would be a major factor. They’re the Summer Olympics for the Northern Hemisphere essentially, so to get the best out of the weather in SA, you’d need to hold it at a different time to a “normal” Olympics - as if it gets too cold in the evening, performance is going to be impaired for the athletes in outdoor events. Having been to Jo’burg in July/August, I can tell you, that due to the elevation, the nights are damn cold. It would have to be held from October to March - this is not an insurmountable problem obviously - Sydney was held in late September after all.
From a climate point of view, the place in SA that would be most suited to holding a Summer Olympics on a “regular” timetable would be Durban. Indeed, South Africa have looked at Durban as a possible venue already but backed out (as a country) of bidding for 2020. Supposedly SA are looking to bid for 2024 or 2028 and Durban is one of the options that they will be looking at then.
I would agree that Jo’burg may be a more attractive venue in terms of prestige but Durban may well be easier logistically. Whatever, I am fairly convinced though that if SA puts together a coherent bid for 2024 or 2028, they will win. SA is on a European timezone, so there is no danger of lost TV revenue from that market and the narrative of having a games in Africa will be difficult to ignore (or course, one also assumes that they will have to play the relevant games of corruption to sort this out).
I don’t see the schedule as being a serious problem, really. I doubt viewers in the Northern Hemisphere really would mind if the Games were held in March or late October. The Melbourne games were actually held in November and December. It’s hard to deny Johannesburg’s central importance, sheer economic might, and prestige (and it’d be easy to share events with Pretoria so you could get their money too.)
Of course, one obvious problem I forgot about with Jo’burg is that there’s nowhere to hold sailing events. Johannesburg has no body of water at all - it is the largest city ever built in human history that is not on the coast of a lake, sea, or river. I guess you could hold the sailing events elsewhere, they’ve done that before.
Heck, in the aforementioned Melbourne games, the equestrian events were held in Sweden.
Perhaps it would be better to pick a country where rapists make up less than 10% of the population? Just throwing that out there.
If the Olympics come to South Africa they will have to be in Durban. Johannesburg is at too high an elevation at around 6000 feet and Cape Town doesn’t have the space unless they flatten half the city to get the stadiums and the mountain in the same photo.
Of course since I’m from Durban I may be a little bit biased :D.
Mexico City is at 7,350 ft! South Africa also seemed to handle the World Cup pretty well, but I guess that only cost £3 billion.
The Sydney 2000 Olympics were held in mid september. I see no reason why they cannot do the same in RSA.
A) Read my post. I say that and agree with you.
B) The specific point was about Jo’burg. Even in September, the nights in Jo’burg are cold. Too cold to hold international athletics. This is why I think Durban is a better bet, as the nights are warmer all year round.
I did. Thats why I wrote in my post, RSA rather than Jo’Burg.
I personally think that the Mid East or the Sub Continent will host an Olympics before Africa.
I think the IOC has as much as said that they’d love to award an Africa games, just as soon as they get a workable bid.
I’d say Johannesburg or Capetown would be the likely cities.