2012 Olympics...Who will win?
 

So...most New Yorkers I've heard from think it's a bad idea for NYC. But I tend to think as it gets closer, they'll warm up to the idea.

That said, I think Paris will win so people shut up about them losing twice already.

I vote London.

The presentations are pretty wacky..in that, some of the people who do the talking are so scripted and it's worse than an awards show - in that sense. I'm watching the web cast, because I'm working and it's far more interesting than CNN right now.

They'll announce the winner in 4 hours Singapore time.

Apparently, Russia's bid was the first time that Vladimir Putin ever spoke English in a public appearance.

I think it will be London.

Ladbrokes (bookmakers) say Paris
http://www.ladbrokes.com/lbr_portal?...LAYOUT=default

Paris	1/2
London	2/1
Madrid	7/1
New York	25/1
Moscow	50/1

The bookmakers are almost always wrong. They were right with Beijing, but everyone assumed they'd get it after losing out for 2000.

I think London is the favourite, but Madrid has an outside shot since they've never hosted.

We'll know fairly soon.

So, you suggest putting money on London then :)

Dola, I'll be happy with any choice but New York (so that we can see the Games live here in Europe)

Yeah what Alf posted seems to be what is said in Spain too. Too bad as i really wanted it in Madrid (40 minutes from my home by car).

I voted London, but I think its neck and neck with Paris, and Paris will probably get it.

They're giving the report of the sites they visited. Lots of pagentry and babble right now, all the cities have ended their presentations.

From what the NY Times said, NYC's bid presentation was well received, while Madrid's wasn't. London spent a lot of time focusing on youth and what their bid would do for them - and youth sport there - while the French essentially apologized for being snooty and not speaking English in past years.

Which is bizarre.

Madrid has the best public approval ratings of any of the cities and is the most "cost-effective" of all the bids. As the only major European capital never to host, it might be interesting to see people get behind them.

But I'd be surprised if London or Paris didn't get it.

But New York could emerge as a dark horse. Dan Doctoroff the guy who has basically handled most of the heavy lifting on the US bid, seems hellbent on winning and despite all the talk of "avoiding corruption" I have a hell of a time believing that all the money that New York is swimming in hasn't been used to pad someone's pockets or "change hearts and minds."

That said, seems like New York - as crowded as it is - is a turnoff for most people interesting. I think all the buildup would be a waste if NYC lost the bid.

President Rogge just told the visitors that they could come back at 1900 local for the announcement of the city. They're at a break now and that's in about an hour and a half local time (it's almost 530pm now)

Most are saying there hasn't been this sort of deadlock over who was going to win in years, so it's a real tossup at this point - which plays into New York's favour. I think Madrid will have to wait until 2024 or something, I think it's just too soon for them.

So...we'll see. After this break, they're going to start voting. I'll post when I find out..

Will tehre be several voting rounds ?

The voting process is about to begin. They just did a test vote using their nifty voting boxes (the whole process is secret ballot) to make sure they work.

To the IOC's credit, at least you can watch the vote online via web cast. I wonder if the candidate city folk are allowed to or if they just have to sit and wait until after its over.

They're drawing right now for the candidate city positions on the ballot. First ballot follows.

In theory. The city with the lowest number of votes get dropped each round, but it's possible for a city to get the majority of the votes in one round, though that seems unlikely in this case.

This whole thing reminds me of taking a test in school when the teacher reads you the instructions about how to fill out the bubbles on the test answer sheet.

It's funny, but..I guess necessary.

The first vote is about to be opened right now. I don't know how long they get, but I can't imagine it takes weeks or anything. Then, the President of the IOC reads the results and I think it goes from there.

Apparently, in the rounds their countries are part of the vote..the IOC reps from each of the candidate cities are not allowed to vote.

"All those who wish to vote for New York, they are invited to press 4 and then the key marked valid."

He had to say that for each of the cities (and their requisite number) Apparently, they can abstain too. Which I didn't know.

They're now debating whether the voting box says "OK" after the person votes or not. The President thought the guy said there was, apparently there isn't and he just clarified.

Weird.

The President Jacque Rogge is a pain. He's dragging this thing out, trying to get them to clarify the instructions, again - about the "OK" appearing "after the choice had been made."

So he's making them read the instructions again for the third time. Then the first vote should open. Grr....

But the guy doing it, just sped it up and told them what to do rather than reading the instructions verbatim.

1st ballot Voting is now open.

1ST ROUND VOTING RESULTS

97 PARTICIPANTS
0 ABSTENTIONS

MOSCOW was dropped from the next round

2nd round voting is now open.

will the final vote be displayed like this one for Moscow, or will they annouce it in a more "official" way ?

2nd vote is closed...

I wonder if New York's bid will die here. They didn't give us the number breakdown, so we don't know how many votes Moscow got in the last round. But will those votes go to Europe or to NYC? That's the wonder...

We'll know shortly.

Ve vill crush you!

Eventually the numbers will be on the site and you can see the breakdown. But not yet.

No abstentions

2ND ROUND VOTE RESULTS

NEW YORK was dropped!

WOW....I guess it's not a surprise.

Paris will win, that's what I think.

They'll do a ceremony after this whole voting process to announce the winner and to sign the contract I guess.

Voting is closed....

This could be it. If it comes down to London and Paris, that will be an interesting battle.

I guess all the networks are covering this now.

no, please Dark Cloud, continue, I am at work

Madrid gets dropped.

Paris is going to win, though I wonder if the Americans will put their support behind London to shaft the French.

I have to say that either London or Paris will be a great place to have the Olympics.

This is the last vote..

Paris v. London

Hehe...here's an epic battle.

I guess it's fair, but then you have to wonder who gets it in 2016. New York says they won't bother to put together another bid, but you have to like their chances in 2016, since Europe won't get the games again and Africa isn't expected to be ready until 2020.

I agree. I think New York was a bit of a reach and considering that nary a New Yorker other than politicians seemed to want the games...it was a dead deal, especially after the stadium debacle.

Also don't forget the persistent rumors that New York's 2012 bid was something of a front to get some stadiums and development deals through to support their real 2016 bid. They always denied it but the rumors wouldn't go away...

Apparently, Jacques Chirac was caught on mic dogging out the English - saying something along the lines of "you can't trust people with such bad food." Or something.

They're going to make us wait 45 minutes for the "announcement" ceremony. They're not going to announce the winner until then.

2016 in NY would do it. But I think, South America will run again (Buenos Aires did run in the early stages)

Well, we all know that had to be the case. I mean, anytime the Jets are trying to get a stadium built that was a huge albatross as a front for the Olympics..and the Brooklyn arena was also part of this swindle...I just can't believe the New York politicians though this thing was going to have legs.

I mean, sentimentally you say "Olympics good" maybe...but the truth is, New York is on the world stage all the time. It doesn't really
need the Olympics games to do that.

Yeah, he did way something like that....

Boooooooooo!

The IOC are all werewolves.

South America is well overdue for a successful bid. I think Brazil has to be an early favourite, simply because of all the talk of making the games more affordable for developing countries to host.

2020 might seem a ways away for them to be thinking about (NYC), but you have to bet that North America will get the Games by then, because of precedent. So maybe 2016 makes more sense for a NYC bid that's more polished, giving way to South American in 2020 and Africa afterwards.

2024 would be Cape Town, then, I guess. Though...one has to wonder what the state of affairs in South Africa will be by then.

I am glad NY did not get the nod; I think its about the last city that should be hosting something like the Olympics.

Phoenix, people. Phoenix.


It's a dry heat.

I wonder how long it will be until Bahrain or the UAE make a bid. Sure there's not much there (except luxury hotels and shopping) but you'd figure that unlimited wealth to build complete infrastructure from scratch has to count for something.

thank god it's not New York. We don't have an inch of sidewalk space in the summertime as it is.

Although I'll admit it would have been fun watching marathon runners come through Central Park and choke on the stink of urin or slip in some horse shit.

"The only thing they (the English) have ever done for European agriculture is mad cow,"

"After Finland, it's the country with the worst food."

Poor Finnish.

There was a thing on the BBC about Chirac going to Finland for some reason coming up and this Finnish-British chef looking forward to serving him a meal. ;)

Not since the Chariots of Fire Olympics in 24 has Paris had the Olympics. I think it will be due.

www.isoh.org

London!

Well at least the oddsmakers were wrong :)

Ooh..good call. I never thought of this.

See, we should have listened to you and put money on London :)

I should've listened to me and put money on London :D

why did they give it london? practically nobody who lives there wants the olympics. its just a tax-payers sinkhole.

Because the London bid folk convinced them that they were going to redevelop blighted parts of London, rather than build huge stadiums that would get no more use after the games. Whether it's true or not, the IOC bought it.

Well that and I think gamesmanship that France got too comfy as the frontrunner. The USA surely pulled a powerplay after it got booted.

yeah, you pay taxes for that. Not us :) France wins !

I wonder if Toronto will bid again. They were strong contenders in 1996 and 2008, so they may be "due" in the eyes of the voters (especially if 2016 is seen as a North American year). There's still the perception that Toronto was shafted by Atlanta's underhanded bid in '96, so there may be a sympathy vote as well. Plus Toronto offers many of the benefits of New York (i.e. east coast time zone) without having to deal with the anti-American sentiments that some votes will have.

Atlanta's underhanded bid? Oh do give me some details, what happened that makes you say this? Honestly, I haven't a clue, I wanna know!

Doing a bit of research, here's a list of Olympic sites from 1960-2012 by continent:

North America (9/4)
2010 Vancouver*
2002 Salt Lake City*
1996 Atlanta
1988 Calgary*
1984 Los Angeles
1980 Lake Placid*
1976 Montreal
1968 Mexico City
1960 Squaw Valley*

Asia (5/3)
2008 Beijing
1998 Nagano*
1988 Seoul
1972 Sapporo*
1964 Tokyo

Europe (13/6)
2012 London
2006 Turin*
2004 Athens
1994 Lillehammer*
1992 Albertville*
1992 Barcelona
1984 Sarajevo*
1980 Moscow
1976 Innsbruck*
1972 Munich
1968 Grenoble*
1964 Innsbruck*
1960 Rome

Australia (1/1)
2000 Sydney

*--Winter site
(#/#)--first number is total games held, second is Summer games held

------------

Clearly, NA and Europe have dominated hosting the games over the long term, but Asia and Australia have hosted four of the ten games since 1988 and will get another crack in 2008. I don't expect the Winter Games to move outside NA or Europe often since both continents have the infrastructure to host the various events in a Winter Olympics. It should be noted that with London hosting, Europe will have not had a strech without the Summer Games longer than 12 years (though they have a 10 year stretch from 1984 to 1994 where they didn't host any games). If the US or Canada got lucky and were awarded in 2016, it would be 20 years since Atlanta in 1996. I suspect a US or Canadian bid will win in 2016 or 2020 for that reason, and after that expect the Summer Games to finally move to Africa and South America.

I think it will either be a North American city or Rio. My instinct tells me though that the US will not nominate New York again.

Something tells me that after New York was eliminated, they were all too happy to throw their votes against the French.

I think each country only gets 1 vote, so I am not sure that New York losing had a big impact on the eventual outcome, unless they got the other people who supported them to support London.

I can't even believe that Madrid and New York were candidates, their countries hosted the Games of 1992 and 1996.

During the fallout on the Salt Lake scandal, there were revelations/accusations about the Atlanta bid greasing a few palms. Delegates were treated to expensive shopping trips, etc. Not at the same level as Salt Lake, but enough to leave a bad taste.

I know nothing about the bidding process, but was the US alone in doing this?

I voted London.... I have a good feeling they will win..

Just like in Waterloo, Trafalgar, Agincourt....London beats Paris again!

Tea and strumpets for everyone!

Mmm, strumpets

I agree with this.

I agree with this. NY probably has a bad taste in its mouth and given the Olympics desire to go with a more "lean" theme, NYC will never fit into that mold since the Olympics would be the most expensive ever.

I think Toronto or Rio will win in 2016, with Africa getting it in 2020...since that'll be 10 years after Cape Town's FIFA World Cup, seems about right timewise.

Official results - by round
 

Here they are...


Really surprised that Madrid did that well in Round 3. But it's even more interesting that New York lost support between Rounds 1 and 2. Makes me all but certain there was a bloc at hand in this whole thing, given how well Madrid did comparatively. If they had the savvy of the NY team, one might argue they could've unseated Paris, because the sentiment was their bid wasn't as "polished" as the others.

Despite that it seems after Round 3, it was London all the way.

I think the irony of having the XXX Olympics in New York would've been hilarious.

How does the "bidding" process and selection process work exactly?

As for Toronto in 2016, I don't know. This would give Canada two Olympics within 6 years. What is the 2014 Winter games shaping up to be? I wonder if a city like Dubai would bid.

As for Africa, don't forget South Africa will get the World Cup in 2010. Does the World Cup play a role at all in the bidding process?

Well, the Winter Olympics bidding process in recent years has been really obscure cities. Vancouver almost lost out to this remote Korean resort city for 2010.

Basically, cities will put together a bid. Then, the olympic committees of their respective countries will sift through the bids and choose one to the their "official bid."

Then the IOC will visit those cities, eventually weeding to get down to 5 candidate cities.

Cape Town last bid for the 2004 Olympics and came in 3rd behind Athens and Rome. So they've got a strong shot to get them in 2016 if they want to put up a bid..and most think it's not a matter of "if" Africa gets it, just when.

Buenos Aires bid during 2004, as well. But look at the vote from that year:


Clearly, if Buenos Aires and Cape Town tied in the 1st round, forcing a runoff between the two...it means that the IOC voters are going to choose either South America or Africa, but it won't be a final vote between the two. I guess that's probably 3rd world voters putting their weight behind one or the other.

The fact that South Africa will get the World Cup in 2010 is a good thing, because the IOC wants to see that your country has the capacity and experience of hosting a large scale, worldwide international event. They've previously hosted the Rugby World Cup not too long ago, as well.

So it'll be an interesting battle.

Here are some Wikipedia articles about the 2014 and 2016 games, that are really interesting:

2014 Winter Games candidate


2016 Summer Olympics Potential cities

On this list apparently include:


And there was this note.

However, with the election of London to host the XXXth Olympiad in 2012 it is considered extremely unlikely that the 2016 Games will be awarded to a European city. This would rule out several of the above potential bids. It is widely expected that in 2016 the Games will return to the USA, due to an unwritten convention that every 20 years the IOC reciprocate for the vast payments by the NBC media group for Olympic coverage - funds that largely bankroll the IOC.

You can rule out all the European cities for 2016. Also, you can rule out Russia. But Dubai is a really, really interesting opportunity (as has been mentioned here..) The bi-national bid thing won't work, because even though they're close in location..the IOC will take the nod from FIFA that said after the joint Korean/Japan world cup they'd never allow another two-nation bid again.

Plus Tijuana is a dump.

Other cities will emerge, but of all the cities on that list..you have to like Dubai as an early favourite. St. Paul could make a nice darkhorse, too. Though why wouldn't they try to host the winter games? Seems more logical to me.

Fast forwarding to 2020, is this interesting note.


I think 2020 seems to be Cape Town's year to bid.

I'd say the reason St. Paul won't do the Winter Games is fairly straightforward. Is there a world-class downhill mountain anywhere near the Twin Cities?

Ok...good call.

True, but there's precendent for that -- the US hosted in 1996 and 2002, as well as 1980 (winter) and 1984 (summer).

Detroit made a pretty strong push for the Winter Olympics at some point in the 60s or 70s; I have a newspaper supplement that was published at the time about it. Apparently, it came fairly close to happening. There aren't really any world-class ski resorts in the area around here either, but they were going to build something for it. I'll try and find the booklet at some point if I get the chance.

What is the future of the World Cup? Germany hosts it next year, and South Africa in 2010. How is that bidding process up for the few competition tournaments after 2010?

After the debacle in 2000 (for the 2006 Cup) where South Africa lost to Germany by a single vote after Oceania's rep abstained rather than vote for South Africa (resulting in a 12-11 win for Germany...the tie would've given the FIFA President a vote and he said he'd vote for South Africa) they decided to go with a rotational policy for each continent.

So in 2014, South America will get the World Cup. All the bids will come from there and they'll choose one.

2018 is obviously a ways off (they're not even starting the bidding process for 2014 until next year) but no one what continent will even get the games yet.