Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
Doesn't explain why the summer Olympics are also getting fewer bids (like they didn't even have a bidding process for 2024/2028, they just gave them to Paris/LA). Also the last Winter Olympics were Sochi and Pyongchang, both resort cities.
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The Summer Olympics are a whole different conversation.
The reason they awarded two games at once was because they were starting to see the frustration from big cities who were spending big money on losing bids and eventually giving up rather than re-bidding. Madrid is a good example, they lost out on 2012, 2016, and 2020 and finally walked away when it came time to bid for 2024.
There was a bid process for 2024 and it came down to LA and Paris. The IOC saw them as two very good bids and didn't want to lose one of them, so they offered 2028 to LA if they agreed to step aside for 2024.
Yes, Sochi and PyeongChang are resort cities, but they're not the same kind of resort cities that used to host the Winter Olympics.
Albertville has a population under 20,000. Lillehammer is under 30,000. Lake Placid's population is under 2,500.
Sochi has over 300,000 people. Gangneung, where the arena events were held in February, has over 200,000.
That's exactly the difference I was talking about when I said the small resort cities that used to host the Winter Games don't anymore. Now, a "small" host city has a population around a quarter million. Less than 30 years ago, it was 10-20% of that.