We'll Know In A Year

Update: How many days until the next Olympics? Here's the countdown, from olympic.org:

PyeongChang Winter Games: 509 days
Tokyo Summer Games: 1405 days
Beijing Winter Games: 1965 days

Original post:
Does the following list ring a bell?

Sydney, Australia
Salt Lake City, USA
Athens, Greece
Turin, Italy
Beijing, China
Vancouver, Canada
London, England
Sochi, Russia
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

These are the cities/countries that have hosted the nine most recent Olympic games, starting with Sydney in 2000 and ending with the Rio games this summer. The reason the list interests me is that the "Let's give every continent a chance" pattern is about to change. After touring the globe from Europe to Asia to Australia to North and South America, we're looking at three Olympiads in a row in Asia:

2018 Winter Games: PyeongChang, South Korea
2020 Summer Games: Tokyo, Japan
2022 Winter Games: Beijing, China

This is not necessarily what the IOC would prefer, but more a reflection of the fact that several potential host cities either lost interest and dropped out or were not capable of hosting the games.

No Asian city is bidding for the 2024 Summer Games, which will return to either the U.S. or Europe, with Los Angeles, Paris, Rome and Budapest in the running as the "final four."


Will the games return to the U.S. after 22 years? In an article dated September 13 at gamesbids.com, a site that obsessively tracks all things related to Olympic bidding, Los Angeles and Paris appear to have the strongest bids, at least for the moment:

Rome, with no support from recently-elected Mayor Virginia Raggi, could bail out of the race later this month on its own accord should the mayor maintain her position and deny the campaign a needed endorsement ahead of an October 7 IOC deadline.  But even if Rome survives, low public support and economic headaches in Italy could have voters shying away from an Olympic partnership with the Eternal City.

Los Angeles enjoys stellar support, recently polled at about 88 per cent, and boasts that most of its venues are already constructed allowing the Golden State to organize a low-cost Games while focusing efforts on the athlete experience – and not construction.  The city has already hosted twice, but its last Games in 1984 has been widely considered to be the most recent profitable Games.

But will politics get in the way of Southern California dreams?  L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti said last month that the potential election of the seemingly xenophobic Donald Trump as U.S. President wouldn’t have an impact on the bid – however that will ultimately be the decision of IOC members.

Paris vows to bring the Games back to Europe and to a city with existing venues, event experience and a deep history with the Olympic movement.  But it won’t be easy – Paris has failed to convince the IOC to gather the world’s athletes in France on three previous bids.  The recent spate of terror attacks in France may also spook Olympic voters.

Budapest hopes to refresh the Olympic movement by leveraging some ready-built venues and offering new needed facilities to be constructed before the Games.  Organizers believe recent successful venue construction projects and a future fifteen year sports development plan will give the IOC the comfort it needs to partner with the Eastern European capital.  While Budapest is the only city of the four to have never had the opportunity to host – the relatively small population of Hungary may have IOC members questioning whether the plans are scalable and legacies sound. Read the entire article here.

The United States is the biggest market for the Olympic product and contributes the most revenue to IOC coffers. My guess is that after 22 years, and following the politically and financially motivated snub to Chicago in 2009, the Olympics will indeed be awarded to the American candidate city. Whether that's actually a good thing for L.A. or not remains to be seen. The announcement comes on September 13, 2017.