Tokyo gets 2020 Summer Olympics
 

Not really a surprising choice considering the problems with Spain and Turkey, thought it is a bit surprising to have back-to-back Olympic events in one concentrated region (not even Asia, but the Far East).

Tokyo Chosen to Host 2020 Summer Olympics - WSJ.com

well, it´s not that unheard of really. There was Spain and France within the same year in 92, Italy and Greece in 04/06. Lake Placid and LA, too.
There was also supposed to be Montreal and Denver in 1976 (but the people in Colorado decided not to fund it)

Asia and especially Japan/Korea get more and more attractive for big time sporting events with their great infrastructure and financial backing.

Hopefully this is a sign that baseball & softball will be back in the Olympics as well.

Now with glow in the dark water!

I'm cool with the choice. I would like to see Istanbul get an Olympics one of these days. I think they deserve to have one and the infrastructure and economic impact would be good for them. Anyone who thinks Turkey is some "backwater Middle Eastern country" is sorely mistaken.

SI

Will you settle for wrestling?

Nope. Lame.

USOC selects Boston as its bid for 2024.

I said to TK...I'm torn.

It'd be cool, but it'll be a massive boondoggle for corruption and more runaway spending.

So yeah...I dunno.

Then again, 10 years is a long ways away.

Awesome. Tokyo is a fun as hell city.

Yeah. We actually do have most of the infrastructure and existing stadiums (Harvard Stadium, Nickerson, hopefully a Revs stadium in the seaport), so if they were fine with Foxboro being the main stadium I'd be fine with it, but any attempt to put a 60,000+ seat stadium near downtown is a huge joke and will be a complete waste of space since Kraft will never move the Patriots there now that he has all that commercial development in Foxboro. Otherwise, sure, why not - there's gonna be a shit ton of corruption surrounding Seaport development anyway, maybe an Olympic push would let them actually focus on making it a cohesive whole instead of going neighborhood by neighborhood and fighting each small zoning board.

Istanbul would be an interesting choice. Turkey is an awesome country, and very underrated as a travel spot IMO.

After the way the Big Dig went what could possibly go wrong?

Agreed!


Agreed again!

Honestly, I think Boston's a better choice for the Winter Olympics than the Summer ones.

I'd like it, but where would you put the skiing events? Sunday River/Mt. Snow are like 4 hours away and I'm not sure they're big enough for the downhill. Killington/Jay Peak are like 8 hours away.

The skiing you put at Sugarloaf, which is plenty big and also has a very big area for the nordic events. Yes, it's like 8 hours from Boston, but just get over the fact that people won't be going back-and-forth daily and it'll be fine.

Of course, I'm biased. :D

Works for me. And with the Olympics now saying that they're okay with "regional bids" I don't think they'd even bat an eye at that.

I've often wondered why you couldn't do a combined Boston/NYC/(Hartford) bid, or like Philadelphia/Washington/(Baltimore). Maybe it would hurt the Olympic Village experience to be split up into two parts, but it would pretty much eliminate any need to build venues.

Umm..it's 3 hours to Burlington from Boston, so now way Killington is EIGHT hours away. It's like 3.5 hours.

Wow, Google Maps has it under 3 hours (given no traffic and good road conditions). Could've sworn it was more, probably because I've only ever driven up there from WMass, (where's its still a 3 hour drive) but 93/89 cut right to it.

You've definitely convinced me - forget the Summer Olympics and let's do a combined Boston/Killington bid for the winter Olympics!

Never mind.

Boston out as U.S. candidate to host 2024 Olympics after USOC severs ties

Good job by Boston.

Seems like the politicians were doing their job for once...

Or were they?

I mean, if the outside analysis (which will still be completed & presumably paid for) was so critical for the governor to see before committing the state then why was it either requested too late or contracted insufficiently as to be ready in a timely fashion?

I'm not fan of Olympic hosting -- found the experience in Atlanta to be mildly annoying & not particularly interesting frankly -- but this seems more like a botched keystone cops effort than a well considered job well done by anybody.