Even Norway & Sweden did not want to bid with all the nonsense, so we ended up with Sochi & Beijing.

What smaller countries ever hosted the Olympics though? Sarajevo 1984 is probably the last I can imagine and they would never host one in XXI century. The "grandiose" switch definitely happened in Winter Games, I'd never predict China hosting WOG even in early 00s. But the costs have driven many Summer OG candidates away, the bidding process is dead and IOC basically has to beg anyone to even come forward or else we'd have every Summer OG in the Middle East for a very long time.

team   MOGULS Cali Carr* Makayla Gerken-Schofield Mateo Jeannesson FREESKI PARK & PIPE Zoe Atkin (Halfpipe) Tom Greenway* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Chris McCormick (Slopestyle & Big Air) Kirsty Muir (Slopestyle & Big Air) James Pouch* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Liam Richards* (Halfpipe) SNOWBOARD PARK & PIPE Mia Brookes (Slopestyle & Big Air) Maisie Hill* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Txema Mazet-Brown* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Katie Ormerod (Slopestyle & Big Air) Siddhartha Ullah* (Halfpipe) SNOWBOARD CROSS Charlotte Bankes Huw Nightingale SKI CROSS Ollie Davies Scott Johns*  

All those grandiose & expensive Winter Games that made it impossible for smaller countries to bid I'd say.

But yeah, this was fun. Too bad we got a safety car at the end when the rain restarted, because the immense chaos right after both McLaren's went off for a bit was just hilarious  

So did Hadjar and Doohan...kind of  

Lots of chaos in Australia today to start the season. As usual, i lost the count of safety cars, that were in the race. The unpredictability and position changes were more frequent, though that was always going to happen in a wet race, but i'll take it as a promising start for 2025.    Antonelli made a memorable debut after all the hype around him. This kid could actually be the real deal.

Just out of curiousity and besides personal preferences for this or that sport or event: what exactly, concretely, did Bach do that 'almost destroyed the Olympics'?

I know the Anglo-World never liked Juan Antonio Samaranch and they're going to be the same with his son, but they should only be grateful to him, because if it wasn't for Don Juan and South Korea, we wouldn't get any Olympic Games nowadays   he did really save the Olympics from the delusions of omnipotence of the politicians ruling the World at that time and from the crazy race to extreme doping of the late Eighties...and if he did something that might be considered "controversial", those who followed him on the sport's more important armchair have been way worse (especially the 1976 Olympic Champion himself, who almost destroyed the Olympics)

I think this is the first time this winter that I agree with you