May 29, 2008
London-to-Chicago Olympic stadium shift all wet
It sounded either brilliant or crazy: London Olympic officials, according to the Guardian, were in talks with Chicago Olympic organizers to reuse temporary seating from the 2012 Games for the 2016 Games, should they land in Illinois:
The Guardian has learned that 55,000 seats from London's 80,000-seat arena could be transported to Washington Park in the Illinois city and used to enlarge a planned, 7,500-capacity community arena into Chicago's main Olympic stadium.
The tactic of recycling the Olympic stadium has been billed as the first step in a new approach to the games, which could become more like a travelling circus to keep costs down and allow poorer countries to play host.
The Chicago Tribune says: crazy. Chicago and London officials insist that while they've talked about maybe reusing some structural steel from the London Olympic stadium, there's no talk of moving seats, let alone entire seating sections: "Seats don't make a lot of sense. They are readily available and readily disposable," Chicago 2016 operations director Doug Arnot told the Trib. "The time, trouble, effort and expense to move them overseas make it unlikely for that to ever happen." Okay, then what about this idea?
The Chicago 2016 bid looks DOA already - the proposed venues show the Stadium that hosts the Opening & Closing ceremonies as in a different location from the Athlete's Village.
This is a logistical & security nightmare that the IOC tries to avoid.
http://www.chicago2016.org/why-chicago/Pages/OurProposedVenues.aspx
Didn't Chicago drop out of the running for the 2012 games because no government entity was willing to guarantee the funding and indemnify the IOC? Neither the City of Chicago nor the State of Illinois were willing to underwrite and guarantee any and all costs and overruns.
Posted by Jonathan on May 30, 2008 11:24 AM
The athlete's village location wasn't seen as a deal-breaker for NYC's 2012 bid, and there it would have been on the other side of the East River. (I seem to remember something about shuttling athletes on ferries. Or maybe jetpacks.) The indemnification issue, on the other hand, could be a bigger deal.
Though I see that GamesBids.com, my favorite source for this stuff, has Chicago as still a co-favorite for the 2016 Games, along with Madrid, Rio, and Tokyo. So maybe the IOC is willing to bend the rules a bit to get access to, ahem, valuable American dollars.
Posted by Neil on May 30, 2008 11:37 AM
NYC would have ferried the athletes from Queens to the West Side of Manhattan - which would have been incredibly risky. The O & Closing ceremonies are a high-risk operation, and the IOC wouldn't want to take any chances. NYC 2012 came in 4th place out of 5, beating only Moscow. So that's not a very high bar to set.
But you're probably right because US is the largest television audience of the Olympics, so the IOC may indeed bend the rules for Uncle Sam. Rules are made to be broken, right?
Posted by Jonathan on May 30, 2008 11:52 AM
well first in regards to the IOC being into the the different levels of the US government for money on the Chicago games would be a departure would it not? Both Atlanta 1996 and Los Angeles 1984 were basically privately funded with some things like Security supported by the Federal Government . A far cry from London 2012 and the exploding budget that their taxpayers are on the hook for. Americas take it or leave it stance is from a position of Power holding the majority of the IOC funding through Private American means. Every time the games come to America or even the Americas it recharges the IOC commercial fortunes. Sponsorship goes up from America hugely even if the games are held in Canada for the Winter Olympics.
The loud protests and moaning in some circles in the IOC is of the share Peter Ueberroth was able to extract from the IOC as funding the USOC via TV and Commercial rights that come out of the US market. The USOC is being pressured for the money which is hard to believe because the NBC Contracts alone are worth more then the tv rights from European Union , South America, Africa and most of rest of the world combined. For each dollar NBC puts out for the Olympics all of Europes tv networks combined only put forth 40 cents. 65 percent of all worldwide partners for the IOC are indeed US based Companies.There would be no Olympics for a share to be battled for if it wasn't for Ueberroth and the LA 84 Success. Europeans have a short memory for history and hence a couple of centuries of continental land wars.
The distance between the athletes village to the main stadium proposed in Chicago is nothing compared with the Distance Rio has theirs from the Maracana Opening, closing and Soccer Stadium and the brand new Jo�o Havelange Olympic Stadium built for the 2007 Pan Am Games. The Barra distinct is far down the coast from Maracana past Ipenema
The odds on favorite is basically in the Americas .As Tokyo is not going to break the mold as the first repeat host outside of the European Continent a mere 8 years after an NBC Tv difficult Games in Beijing.
The east Asian time zone area has been well served with Sydney 2000 and Beijing 2008 . Also against Tokyo is that it would be a relatively quick return engagement . London was 64 years between games with no bid competition for the 1948 hosting , Rome was supposed to host by IOC decree in 1908 but had to give up the hosting to London . the return engagement was in 1960 or 52 years apart. Toyko was last 1964 and a 2016 hosting would be 52 years apart but via two bid elections . There is no prior dual hosting city for bid elections and no dual hosting city outside of Europe period let alone one that has even won one bid election.
Berlin newly re-cast German Capital 2000 was firmly rejected for a repeat performance 64 years after the 1936 games.
The only repeat host for the games since world war 2 is London and 1948 was a sympathy thing. London had the games awarded to them for 1944 but of course where dodging V1 at that time.
Madrid is out simply because you would be looking at the same time zone a London 2012 and back to back European Olympics. Something that has not been done since the 1948 1952 with London and Helsinki . No country has ever hosted twice in the space of 24 years for the summer games except the United States in the last 60 years and Spain is not going to break the mold.
The 1948 1952 double european hosting was before TV and Global Corporations had any influence on the games near what it is today. McDonald's was certainly on much in the 1950's.
The United States has only ever won one actual bid election and that was for Atlanta 1996. Los Angeles never actually had competitors to their 1932 and 1984 bids.Los Angeles is the most rejected bid city to actually host at 9 bid attempts and two unopposed bids. Chicago 1904 was really a granting of the games as a logical course from Athens to Paris to America.
Rio will probably end up with the games being one hour ahead of Eastern Time Zone Primetime and thus bringing the games to South America for the first time as a desire of the IOC to have the five rings of the Olympics included for the hosting. Rio has the stadium in place right now with transportation being the major hurtle. That hurtle has to be addressed for World cup 2014 anyways. Hey they certainly don't need much for Beach Volleyball LOL. Rio was put on the short list despite Doha Qatar coming ahead of Rio in the evaluation report. The IOC is pushing towards Rio and politically a John McCain presidency would seal the deal for Rio.
As to the transferring the stadium thing . scaffolding is scaffolding and every year America has more temporary Grandstands on this continent then europe does. Just look to the Annual Canadian grand prix in montreal 112000 seats ever junefor two weeks on the site . I think some people from the UK are in a bad situation where they have a 10 percent increase since November 2007 on a temp stadium costing over 1 billion dollars . Hopefully we let London sink in their own stupdity and not rescue them like we did post world war two or 1984 olympics.