Other Things In My Head

This blog was never intended to be "all royal baby, all the time," and even if it was, there's nothing happening in London, so I decided it's time to post new stuff about one of my other regular blog topics, the Olympics.

The Sochi Winter Games are 201 days, or 6 1/2 months, away, per the countdown clock on the official olympic.org website. If you've never heard of Sochi and don't know where it is, let me enlighten you: it's a city in Russia. And yes, the world has changed since the last Games in Russia, or as it was known in 1980, the U.S.S.R., but not that much. Just this week a United States senator floated the idea that we should boycott the 2014 games to protest Russia's sheltering of leaker Edward Snowden. The idea didn't get much traction, happily, so the Games can proceed with just the usual amount of geopolitical posturing and politics.

I like the countdown clock, by the way, and check it periodically, which is how I know that the 2016 Summer Games, which are not being held in Chicago, are 1111 days away, followed by the Pyeongchang Winter Games in 2018, or 1664 days from now. Before any of that happens, however, the site of the 2020 Summer Games will be announced on September 7, and the cities in contention are Istanbul, Tokyo and Madrid. Japan's had the games three times before, 1964 (summer,) 1972 and 1998 (winter); Spain's had them once, in 1992 (summer.) Tokyo and Madrid were also finalists for the 2016 games. Will either country repeat in 2020 or will the IOC selection committee go with Istanbul? We'll know in 7 weeks.