That's it – the USOC is officially on my mud list. Yesterday they announced that the list of cities they are considering as the US bid for the 2016 Olympics has been reduced to three: Los Angeles, San Francisco, and – god forbid – Chicago. Up until this point I had pretty much dismissed talk of chi-town scoring the games as a pipe dream of the mayor's, a blatant attempt to distract the media and residents from all his recent scandals*. But now that damn USOC has practically handed the bid to Chicago – so now I'm officially getting nervous.
Why, you ask? Aren't the other two cities just as likely to be the bid as Chicago? Perhaps, but I think the reasons tey wouldn't get the games are much higher than the reasons they would. Los Angeles for example has already held the games twice - including once in the last 25 years. Say whatever you want, but I cannot believe that the IOC would pick to have a third timer before ever giving the games to Africa or South America – politically, it's just the wrong thing to do. San Francisco is beautiful, and populated with intelligent, good-looking people and great weather, but I'm not sure it has the infrastructure to hold something that big for that long. And besides, the costs of staging anything in SF are much higher. Finally, both SF and LA are in California, right on a fault line. Who knows if either city will still be standing** in 10 years?
So that leaves my little town as the most likely candidate. And honestly, I'm not looking forward to it. Not just the years of construction and road work that would tie up traffic for years, but also for the event itself. 16 days of not being able to get a reservation anywhere, traffic misery, el trains packed with tourists all asking how to get to Al Capone's house, and absolutely no place to park. Not to mention all the terrorist attacks that would no doubt be attempted. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.
My only hope lies in the fact that we don't have a stadium big enough to hold the Opening and Closing ceremonies. But if they somehow find a way around that, I'll be seriously considering renting out my condo and getting out of town.
Or...maybe I'll get tickets to the rhythmic gymnastics competition. Or baseball at Wrigley Field. But that's it! After all I do have my principles.
Well...maybe women's beach volleyball...
* Whether related to sketchy hiring practices or his failure to investigate allegtions of torture in the Chicago Police Department that were recently found to be true.
** Heck the entire state may slide into the ocean by then, and residents of Lake Tahoe might be enjoying their new oceanfront property
Why, you ask? Aren't the other two cities just as likely to be the bid as Chicago? Perhaps, but I think the reasons tey wouldn't get the games are much higher than the reasons they would. Los Angeles for example has already held the games twice - including once in the last 25 years. Say whatever you want, but I cannot believe that the IOC would pick to have a third timer before ever giving the games to Africa or South America – politically, it's just the wrong thing to do. San Francisco is beautiful, and populated with intelligent, good-looking people and great weather, but I'm not sure it has the infrastructure to hold something that big for that long. And besides, the costs of staging anything in SF are much higher. Finally, both SF and LA are in California, right on a fault line. Who knows if either city will still be standing** in 10 years?
So that leaves my little town as the most likely candidate. And honestly, I'm not looking forward to it. Not just the years of construction and road work that would tie up traffic for years, but also for the event itself. 16 days of not being able to get a reservation anywhere, traffic misery, el trains packed with tourists all asking how to get to Al Capone's house, and absolutely no place to park. Not to mention all the terrorist attacks that would no doubt be attempted. Thanks for the offer, but no thanks.
My only hope lies in the fact that we don't have a stadium big enough to hold the Opening and Closing ceremonies. But if they somehow find a way around that, I'll be seriously considering renting out my condo and getting out of town.
Or...maybe I'll get tickets to the rhythmic gymnastics competition. Or baseball at Wrigley Field. But that's it! After all I do have my principles.
Well...maybe women's beach volleyball...
* Whether related to sketchy hiring practices or his failure to investigate allegtions of torture in the Chicago Police Department that were recently found to be true.
** Heck the entire state may slide into the ocean by then, and residents of Lake Tahoe might be enjoying their new oceanfront property
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I had friends who lived in Atlanta when the Olympics were there in '96. Actually, they lived about 40 miles north of town.
But, they didn't want to deal with all the traffic and the hassle. They rented their house out for two weeks - to the tune of $4,500.
While the rest of Atlanta was dealing with traffic and road closings and other nonsense, they were sipping drinks on some secluded beach in the Carribbean.