Can Vancouver Host the summer olympics?

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by Pinion

I found logos like Nike swooshes just as prominent as country indicators.

That's what the olympics are really about. Countries are just an outdated technicality.

Really? Soccer (and equestrian) have standard uniforms which don't lend to most of the uniforms. That being said, they're still usually draped in their flag's colors.

Of course, the Olympics are about commerce and commercialism, but it's pretty hard to ignore the divisive nationalism that comes up when the Olympics are around.

In general, many of the athletes uniforms are essentially draping their flag around them and it's pretty hard to argue that the focus is on the country as opposed to the athlete, especially when it comes to comments like "China has swept the ENTER_SPORT" events or "USA is leading the medals count" or "The Brits are totally dominating cycling!" or "The Gold is kept in the USA, where it belongs! - M. Phelps"



I'm not against sport as a uniting force, I just think the Olympics do a very poor job of it. In fact, I'd say they end up promoting the opposite: divisive national pride.

Most professional sports leagues do a better job of uniting the world through sport. EPL has soccer players from around the world and although it's still "city" vs "city" there's less my culture vs. your culture. Teams like "Real Madrid" and "Man U" have supporters far outside their traditional cultural boundaries.

The NHL is similar with lots of European talent permeating the roster.

The point I'm making is that if the Olympics was about bringing people from different countries together in the name of sport, wouldn't the country they're from be downplayed, as opposed to celebrated? As it stands now, it seems like it's more important to "support OUR athletes" more than to "support athletes"

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by mr.x

According to another article at vancitybuzz, which cites the IOC's evaluation report for the 2010 bid, there were more overall positive comments about Vancouver than the other bid cities.

I think the rendering of Victoria's ceremonies stadium is meant to show the imagination behind the bidding process, thinking otherwise negatively about it seems a bit too cynical.

Beijing 2008 hosted its equestrian matches at HONG KONG, and some of its football venues were as far away as SHANGHAI. If I were you I'd take a look at a map and see how far away these cities are from Beijing.....having a football venue and equestrian facility at Calgary is certainly doable.

If you look at the Olympic basketball and gymnastics venues used over the past few Games, you'd see that the gymnastics venues are always the larger indoor arenas. And it's no biggie, the difference between Rogers Arena and the Coliseum are maybe a mere 1,000-2,000 seats when you include floor seating for basketball at the Coliseum.

Positive comments about a bid play little to no role in deciding who gets the games in the end. As already stated Vancouver was behind in the first vote but prevailed in the second due to block-voting by the remaining delegates thanks in large part by lobbying by the Canadian contingent. But this kind of stuff is nothing new to the IOC as the stories of corruption during the bidding processes for Olympics is really the stuff of legend.

The 94' stadium in Victoria was officially promised as part of the bid but never built. The athletics stadium was also drastically scaled down (a rare photo of it appears in the article) and looks like a piece of crap. The picture of it serves as an homage to previous bidding boondoggles.

Also, you cannot compare China to Canada in any way, shape or form as China has 100X the influence with the IOC that Canada has. First of, China was promising a high-speed rail link between Beijing and the satellite sites that would have reduced the travel times to those sites to about 3 1/2 hours rather than the usual 12-15 hour car or bus ride. They only delivered a partial line in times for the games yet the IOC looked turned a blind eye. We here couldn't even begin to think about a project like that, nevermind financing it. Regardless, China can get away with things that almost no other country (other than the US) in the IOC can. We are nowhere near that status. So before you reach for the map, you might consider googling "IOC Corruption books" and read just how a country truly goes about winning an Olympic bid

Finally as for Rogers Arena the difference is way different than just a a couple thousand seats. Rogers Arena has a club section and 4 different bars and restaurants while the coliseum has 0 and 1 respectively. Second, Rogers has close to 90 suites while the Coliseum has 16. At $5-10,000 a pop for games that would involve Team USA that is a very large gulf. This doesn't even count the much larger concession opportunities at Rogers. So to summarize, its no even close.

[Vancity]

Summer Olympics ain't going to happen in Vancouver. Sorry. Not for a VERY long time, if ever.

Also. Anyone cheer for the Single-A Canadians? Back to back titles!

Will this spur greater growth of professional baseball in Van? A step closer to bringing that MLB dream to Vancouver?

[EastVanMark]

Originally Posted by Vancity

Summer Olympics ain't going to happen in Vancouver. Sorry. Not for a VERY long time, if ever.

Also. Anyone cheer for the Single-A Canadians? Back to back titles!

Will this spur greater growth of professional baseball in Van? A step closer to bringing that MLB dream to Vancouver?

Without a new ballpark, Vancouver won't even see the return of AAA baseball let alone the majors. The ONLY reason AAA baseball left Vancouver was because of the ballpark. That situation remains unchanged which is kind of unfortunate since the Canadians have enjoyed great local support over the years. But in order to tie this into this thread, it sure would be easy to get said ballpark built with a major games bid.

[Vancity]

Originally Posted by EastVanMark

Without a new ballpark, Vancouver won't even see the return of AAA baseball let alone the majors. The ONLY reason AAA baseball left Vancouver was because of the ballpark. That situation remains unchanged which is kind of unfortunate since the Canadians have enjoyed great local support over the years. But in order to tie this into this thread, it sure would be easy to get said ballpark built with a major games bid.

can't see why the owners of the Canadians couldn't expand the current ballpark. They currently hold approx 5k at Nat Bailey Stadium. Expand that to another 5k - make it 10k, and remain single A. And if they can sellout that ballpark at 10k, expand even more to 15k, and move up from single A, to double A. And maybe even Triple A baseball. I think Vancouver can support a Triple A franchise, and even sell out in that league. Major league baseball? Wouldn't be a stretch. We may not be able to compete with the likes of the NY's, or the Boston's of the league, but few teams can. What's stopping the owners from at least moving up, and expanding the stadium bit by bit, though? Dunn is a great president for the C's, and he's currently doing a fantastic job running the team.

[WarrenC12]

Originally Posted by Vancity

can't see why the owners of the Canadians couldn't expand the current ballpark. They currently hold approx 5k at Nat Bailey Stadium. Expand that to another 5k - make it 10k, and remain single A. And if they can sellout that ballpark at 10k, expand even more to 15k, and move up from single A, to double A. And maybe even Triple A baseball. I think Vancouver can support a Triple A franchise, and even sell out in that league. Major league baseball? Wouldn't be a stretch. We may not be able to compete with the likes of the NY's, or the Boston's of the league, but few teams can. What's stopping the owners from at least moving up, and expanding the stadium bit by bit, though? Dunn is a great president for the C's, and he's currently doing a fantastic job running the team.

Well, they don't sell out 5k very often, or at all for starters. Prices are dirt cheap and it's a fun night out in the summer. I think they need more publicity.

[Vancity]

Originally Posted by WarrenC12

Well, they don't sell out 5k very often, or at all for starters. Prices are dirt cheap and it's a fun night out in the summer. I think they need more publicity.

Yeah. Tickets are cheap for sure. I agree, I think they need to publicize and market their team more. Get more people to come out. They've been doing a great job this past summer in getting people to come out. Hope that they can get more people to commit financially to their club.

I want to see Triple A back in Vancouver. I think this city can demonstrate support at that level, and if we can do that at the Triple A level, who knows what Van can do? Major league, perhaps? I know people have differing opinions on that, but if the city can support and sell out at the triple A level, then I think the sky's the limit in terms of possibilities.

With that being said. I think the NBA's more likely to return before MLB ever gets to Van.

[Hot Rod]

Beijing Olympics also had events (futbol) in Chongqing.

So just because a city is awarded the event doesn't mean all events need to be held in the host city; just mainly the finals, opening and closings.

I'm certain Vancouver could do it, particularly if we follow the Beijing model and have prelims, quarter and semis in other cities throughout Canada and the finals in the Vancouver metro. I also agree that we should shoot for smaller events (commonwealth, Pan America games, Youth Olympics, etc) first.

I really liked the transit expansion concepts from the VanCity Buzz articles. I say - build it all!

[Pinion]

Cities only get smaller as you move away from Vancouver. If it's not feasible in Vancouver, it's definitely not feasible spread out across western Canada.

Chongqing's population is almost as big as Canada's and has high speed rail connecting it to other major centres. Even if there was a line to Seattle - the only city that would make sense to share it with - it would still be a logistical nightmare to host it internationally.