OlympicsFan

It is very easy to reduce costs. Either you build less expansive venues or you reuse venues. Building less expansive venues usually means less capacities which means less ticket revenue and less chances for the local population to watch, so this isn’t really a good option. This means that the best option would be to reuse venues. In this day and age it is impossible to build a swimming stadium or a ski jumping hill and to get back the costs later by constantly hosting competitions there. This means that only cities that already have most of the venues should host the Olympics. In most cases those will be cities that hosted the games before. I also refuse to believe that the major cities I named earlier wouldn’t be able to open up 10-15k hotel beds for athletes if they know about it multiple years in advance, especially with more and more tourists choosing Airbnb over hotels. Of course this wouldn’t work for places like Sochi, which means that those places shouldn’t host the Olympics. Maybe the IOC could set a budget for all the possible hosts (say 1-2 billion dollars) or they could favor the bids with the most efficient budget, kind of how it is often done with construction projects.

Please try to state your point. Your comment is all over the place. There might be downsides to this concept, but it certainly would reduce costs, which is the main reason why less and less countries want to host the Olympics. The lack of an Olympic village is no problem in big cities, you can just use a hotel/multiple hotels or the athletes could for example live in student apartments that are usually empty during the summer anyways. In a better world countries would build a new apartment complex for the athletes and afterwards it would be used to fix homelessness in that city. I think the Olympic village, the stadium and the swimming stadium are normally the most expansive venues. You can bring down the costs of the swimming stadium by using a temporary (outdoor) pool. Every big city usually already has a large stadium for the opening ceremony/athletics and multiple indoor arenas for other sports. Maybe you will have to install a temporary track, but that still would be far less expansive than building a new stadium. You could also hold the ceremonies in the city to allow more people to watch. If it is for example too expansive to build a (temporary) venue for track cycling, then track cycling should be dropped from the Olympic program. The same is true for sledding events or ski jumping at the Winter Olympics. It would be too nice to call it insanity when countries regularly build two ski jumping hills for two weeks of competition.

Yes, modernizing venues is still normally (much) less expansive than building new venues. For example the Olympic stadium that was built for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin is still used today. The IOC would have to accept that not all the venues will look new and shiny, so this will never happen of course.

Interesting article by The Ringer: https://www.theringer.com/2021/1/22/22244941/tokyo-summer-olympics-status-thomas-bach-ioc I always thought that it might make sense to rotate the Olympics between maybe 10 to 15 cities. Summer: Moscow, Barcelona/Madrid, Rome, Paris, London, Berlin, Toronto, Seoul, Tokyo, Beijing, Shanghai, Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam, Sydney Winter: Munich, Milan, Innsbruck/Salzburg, Oslo/Lillehammer, Stockholm, Helsinki, Lake Placid/Salt Lake City, Vancouver, Nagano/Sapporo, Albertville, St. Moritz/Lausanne

I don’t really follow this tournament, but this sounds like a really optimistic take. I would be surprised to see Egypt beating Denmark, France, Spain or Norway in a do-or-die match. Let’s see what will happen from here on.

Nice surprise for Germany. Not sure how much it means on a world stage. Still another interesting result for Germany this winter, after a medal in men’s snowboard slopestyle (first medal in that event in more than 10 years), a medal in women’s aerials (first medal in that event in 20 years) and 2 medals in men’s slalom by Strasser. I guess we’ll have to wait until next season to see if those results were just a fluke thanks to COVID. Sadly Germany is still trash in speed skating and cross-country.

You can’t win everything ... You had some great results in ski-/snowboardcross.

A lot of people in Silicon Valley like the idea of an universal basic income very much, so I think that Sanders becoming president wouldn’t be the worst thing in their own opinion.

1) Any source for that? 2) Why would it matter? 3) I think the same is true for Trump‘s grandchildren, so at least you would have some continuity there.

This week there is a World Cup event in Laax taking place. From tomorrow on there will be live streams on their website for the half-pipe/slopestyle finals. From a German perspective it has already been a very good week. Both Vockensperger (in men’s slopestyle) and Ettle (in women’s halfpipe) already made the final and hopefully Höflich will follow in men’s halfpipe. Only Morgan in women’s slopestyle was disappointing. The new Slovenian coach Luka Gartner really has done a tremendous job so far.

We‘ll see about that ... Also: Once again great job connecting unrelated things to support your narrative.

I knew that Dagur Sigurdsson was a magician (after what he did with Germany in 2016), but this might be his new masterpiece. Going from Sigurdsson to Prokop was a huge downgrade for Germany, but luckily „we“ have a new coach from Iceland now.

Cool ... why should we care about random rumors? Why not just wait until there is an official decision? Also I doubt that the 2026 olympics will take Place in Los Angeles and i don’t think anyone can say today whether the 2024 and 2028 olympics will take place as planned.

2019 world military games

What? Vikings better than GOT?

FINA Rankings are usually garbage, they miss tons of results. Hayang swam 4:10 during the qualification period. I think Swimswam has better rankings.

I meant your 200 breast prediction obviously. I think in the 100 breast he might have a better chance than in the 200 breast.

I think your rankings are wrong, for example you forgot Hayang (who could be a dark horse alongside Foster). Also I don’t think that Scott (or Dean) will swim the 400 IM, but who knows ...

Nice surprise by Strasser. I guess the conditions were unfair? Overall some very weird results already this season. Would be nice for Strasser to become a top 10 guy in the slalom. I expected more from Kristoffersen/Noel/Vinatzer this season.

The same as for swimming: Men: 10000 m: No medal for Kiplimo/Kipruto? High jump: Would be very surprised to see Starc winning a medal. I think Russia will win at least one medal. Long jump: I don’t see Hashioka winning a medal. What about Henderson/Manyonga/Tentoglou? Did they retire/get caught? 200 m: Would be very surprised to see Odudoru winning a medal. Maybe De Grasse for bronze. Sani Brown winning a medal would be nice. Triple jump: No medal for Claye? Shot put: No medal for Kovacs? 400 m: I think Norman will medal. 5000 m: No medal for Kiplimo? 4 x 100 m: I don’t think that Jamaica will medal, I would go with Japan. Women: Discus: I would pick Caballero over Allman. 5000 m: No medal for the world record holder? 200 m: I think Miller-Uibo wins a medal if she competes. 3000 m SC: I don’t see Kiyeng winning a medal. Even Krause seems like a more likely option. 400 m: No medal for Naser? 1500 m: Ennaoui ...? I think that there are at least 10 girls who are more likely to medal than her. 10000 m: A medal for Japan would be one of the biggest surprises in Olympic history. Even if Kenya and Ethiopia would be banned, she wouldn’t be a favorite for a medal.

I will maybe post my full „analysis“ later, but here are my biggest „problems“ with your predictions: Men: 400 IM: I don’t see Papastamos winning a medal. If you want to pick a young guy, you should rather go for Borodin. 400 free: Both Horton and Yang not winning a medal seems pretty unlikely. 4 x 100 free: I don’t see Australia winning a medal. I would pick Russia for silver and Brazil for bronze. 4 x 200 free: I think that GB will medal (instead of Russia) 100 breast: A medal for Prigoda seems extremely unlikely. I think Chupkov will win gold and then the other medals will be between the two Japanese guys, the two Australian guys and maybe Kamminga. 100 free: Gold for Scott seems very unlikely. I think it will be Dressel - Chalmers - Minakov/Morozov/Grinev/Scott/2nd American guy. 200 IM: Silver for Seliskar seems very unlikely, I doubt that he will even qualify. I think Scott/Larkin/Andrew/Hagino/Desplanches and maybe a couple other guys are all more likely to medal than Seliskar. Women: 400 IM: I think Margalis will medal. 200 IM: I don’t see McKeown winning a medal or even competing, but who knows ... My prediction would be Hosszu + Ye + Margalis/Japanese girl. 50 free: Wasick winning a medal would be a big surprise for me. I think Blume, Campbell and the Chinese girl are all more likely to medal (apart from Sjöstrom and Manuel).

Interesting that no one predicts Germany to qualify. I hope that the German team will prove them wrong.

Men’s basketball: I would pick France/Australia/Serbia instead of Greece. Men‘s football: I would pick Brazil instead of Egypt. Men‘s handball: I think at least one out of Norway/Denmark will medal.

I think at Full strength they could have had a chance to make the semifinal. Canada, Russia and Sweden seem to be too good, but maybe Germany at full strength could have surprised Finland/USA. It’s quite ironic that this is the first time that Germany made the quarterfinal, when they were playing the first 3 games with only 14 players available and without 2 of their 3 best players (including Seider, who probably would have been the best dman at this tournament). Looking at Peterka‘s stats in this tournament, I feel good about my take on draft night that he should have been a first round pick. In a couple of years Germany could Land some upsets at senior level with this generation + Draisaitl.

I think at least Dressel, Rooney, Milak and Minakov have a better shot at winning a medal. Miladinov is a really interesting case though. If I remember correctly he lived in Germany until 2 years ago. I am not sure whether he was born there or only went there as a child though ... Switzerland has really made a stunning progress in swimming recently. Now they have 4 athletes (Ponti, Desplanches, Mamie and Ugolkova) who could make the final in Tokyo.