With the Eurovision Song Contest now completed for another year, it’s time for another international contest of intrigue, bargaining and frankly bizarre voting. In other words, the IOC today announced the shortlist of cities to host the 2012 Olympic Games.
Four European cities have made the shortlist: Paris, Madrid, London and Moscow, with New York the only non-European city remaining in the race. Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, Leipzig and Havana were all excluded from the shortlist.
The GamesBids website has good coverage of the procedure to select the host city, with ongoing assesments and ratings of the candidate cities. As their ratings of the cities show, Rio’s exclusion from the shortlist was quite a shock, as it had been seen as a very strong bid, especially as the Games haven’t been held in Latin America before.
Paris appears to be the favourite at this stage, though Madrid does appear to be gaining strength (the IOC ranked it second of the five shortlisted bids) as time goes by but may be hampered by the fact that the 1992 Olympics were also in Spain. However, Olympic voting is one of the hardest things in the world to predict, and it’d take a braver person than me to predict which city will be chosen when the IOC meets in Singapore next year.
“the Games haven?t been held in Latin America before”
Mexico City, 1968.
However, the games have still never been held in South America.
The oddsmakers aren’t afraid to bet on which city will host the games.
Paris 40%
NYC 20%
London 20%
Madrid 15%
Moscow 5%
– from http://www.tradesports.com
I somehow think Madrid has a better shot than London or Paris. Sure, the olympics were in barca in 92 but being able to host both the world cup AND the olympics in less than 15 years, not for one country, but for ONE city is a bit too much. And London…well besides the transportation, it feels a little anti-climatic.
Why wouldn’t Rio be a nice place for the Olympics?
To John Kwon: I think having the people in charge arguing over whether to send tanks into the streets might have had something to do with the Olympics decision.
BBC story.
I would love to see the Olympics in Paris; the marathon would be partly run along the Champs Elysees I am sure; etc. Just the sports in relationship to all the beautiful scenery in the city is worth it; plus there is the excuse of travelling to the Central Massif and the Cote d’Azur afterwards. Ahh yes, living like a God in France.