It is with great indifference that I am reporting that London will host the 2012 Olympic games. I would've preferred Paris but there is at least one consolation in that New York lost their bid.
"Ahhhh... the joys of Anti-Americanism" you say... well not really. I like New York. It is one of the places in America I would live if I ever chose to live there (which I would not). My problem is that America has hosted the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, the 1932 and 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles and the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. New York would have made it five - a rather unbalanced situation. By contrast, Paris (1900 and 1924) and London (1908 and 1948) have had them twice. For more details of where the Olympics have been held, go here.
I would have been great if the bid was won by Paris - I can just imagine some really uptight Americans threatening to boycott the 2012 Olympics and form their own "Freedom games". At that point I would have suggested that these new games could be held in Guantanamo bay.
I do have one suggestion for the IOC - It would make more financial sense to have the Olympics every three years and for each successful host city to hold them twice in succession. The huge amounts of money spent on infrastructure are then used twice instead of once, and the Olympics gets to be held more often.
Example:
2012 - London
2015 - London
2018 - Jakarta
2021 - Jakarta
2024 - Pitcairn Island
2027 - Pitcairn Island
And so on...
From the This Salient Sporting Life Department
1 comment:
... or we could just drop the whole three (five?) ring circus and spend the money on some worthy causes.
While we're at it we could ban all professional sport. That might make it fair for people from tinpot little [insert continent of your choice] countries to compete on a level playing field.
Professional sportspeople could then all go and get real jobs that contribute to the economy instead of being subsidised by the taxpayer on top of the millions they earn from advertising because of their ability to run 0.01 of a second faster than the rest of us (or more than a few seconds in my case).
The soccer players would have to go and get their hair cut as a bunch of pretty boys with bad haircuts would not surivive a day in the real world.
This would then create jobs for former commentators like Bruce McEveney and Ken Sutcliffe. Now THAT would be something SPECIAL :-)
Failing that we can always create new TV quiz shows for has-beens (or never-beens) to host.
That's my final answer. Locked in!
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