Almost Time For The Olympics

Even though it's only been a few weeks, the trauma and drama of the unsuccessful Chicago 2016 Olympic bid now seems so 2009. It's time to move on, and what better way to do that than to get into the spirit of the 2010 Winter games, which are now less than 3 weeks away. The marquee sport of the Winter games, of course, is ice skating, and watching the finals of the U.S. National Championships last night has definitely put me in the Olympic mood.

The Winter Olympics don't get nearly as much publicity as the Summer ones do, and in fact, the Winter games always kind of sneak up on me. There's certainly no athlete with Michael Phelps-level star power and press coverage to generate advance interest in these games, and I had never heard of the two women who finished first and second last night and will now represent the U.S. in Vancouver. Apparently a skater from South Korea is favored to win the Olympic gold medal.

NBC is trying to generate excitement however, and I've begun to see their commercials for the upcoming coverage. I'm reminded that like so many other things, the Olympics are now, first and foremost, big business. NBC will make their profit (or not) based on how much advertising they can sell and they've started to hype the games big time as we count down to the opening ceremony. There's been some talk that the Vancouver games may feel like a bit of a letdown after all the excitement of Beijing, but I'm not too worried about that. The Winter games have always had a smaller, more intimate feel to them that I actually kind of like.

By the way, we now know the host cities for the next four Olympics: 2010 in Vancouver, 2012 in London, 2014 in Sochi, Russia, and 2016 in Rio de Janiero. Do you know which cities are bidding for the next games after that, which are the 2018 Winter Olympics? They are Munich; PyeongChang, South Korea and Annecy, France. GamesBids is a cool site that tracks everything related to Olympic bids, and if you're interested, the 2018 winning bid will be announced on July 6, 2011. Any guesses?

In the meantime, on to Vancouver and let the games begin!