De_Gambassi

Apparently, they do. Hard as steel minimum standards for qualification is becoming a mantra of french sport since the swimming federation apllied that policy in the early 2000's (and that many beleieve it leads to the great results of french swimmers during the next decade). It's something I don't agree with, but who cares.

Yes

Samir Aït Saïd, the guy that many probably remember as "that gymnast who had that horrible accident during the Rio Games" has jumped back to competition this week-end during the french internationals and managed to secure its place in the final tomorrow. He scored 14.900 points which is eactly the score he needed to be in Montréal.

The new national stadium in Brussels sounds less and less likely to be ready for the Euro 2020 (in french) They are talking about Lille (like in not in Belgium Lille) as a backup plan

They did try... with Madrid 2020 Once Tokyo was chosen. It was quicly forgotten (there was a fronton 2020 world championship near Bordeaux in 2013 and then a whole bag of nothing). This time, it's like they don't even care.

"Youth and urban"

The country hosting the IOC cession can't bid for hosting the olympics chosen during this same cession. edit: well, Milan doesn't seem as a vey appealing winter games host city anyway. edit2: I see that we don't even have a dedicated thread for the 2026 race. Anyone up for that ?

My two cents regarding the most possible additional sports (probability to be chosen between brackets): - Sport Climbing (9/10): fresh, cheap enough to stage, decent medal chances, domestic following (Bercy Arena packed for recent world championship), growing, - Karate (8/10): Cheap to stage, uber high medals chances, doesn't appear like too french or too european, continuation from Tokyo 2020 - Squash (7/10): Cheap to stage and possibly set in any iconic Paris landscape, good enough medal chances, french president of the world federation (can't hurt),. Should be considered as a lock too, but it's squash and the Olympics, so you never know. - Surfing (7/10): Decent following in the South (South) West, historical legitimy, succesfull previous events (world cup stages, recent 2017 Biarritz WC), bring some needed sexyness to the Games. Would be guaranted to be hold in 3 consecutives games (2020-2028) - Boules sport (4/10): Biggest non olympic federation (300K members), almost guaranted medals, cheap to stage, national pastime. Could be seen as a frontrunner, but it suffers from a huge image problem (ie. it is not seen as a proper sport by most) Outsiders: Skateboarding, Esport, Baseball, Speed Roller, Wakeboarding, Pelota basque (I wish...). If one can't exclude anyone from the race at this point (who would have thought of skateboarding for Tokyo ?), these sports are by far the most likely to be chosen. If anyone can read french, I've put my thoughts in a bit more articulated way (here and here)

Soooo, for real ?, all right, let's start this thread. . Additional sports: As we all know, hosting cities are now free to add a certain number of extra sports and events to the olympic program. Only the 37 IOC recognised federations can apply for inclusion. For Tokyo, 26 of them applied, 7 were then short-listed, and finally, 5 were chosen (skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing, baseball/softball & karaté). As of today, the parisian commite has tried its best not to close the door to anyone (from E-sport to Pétanque). We are yet to know what will be the exact schedule of the bidding process, but apparently, the additional sports will be known by 2019. . New events: Not directly linked to the host, we can also expect the olympic program to move further into a more "youth and urban" direction. Gender equality is also likely to be pushed even futher.

The IOC would have to change its rules to allow Milan (or any other italian city) to bid. What's the distance between Milan and the ski resorts (and ST Moritz) ?

It's much more than possible. On a very side note, I'd never realized that the IOC had actual candidate cities bidding to host the freaking ioc cession. Bids that feature former top athletes, politicians, videos about nothing, ackward and pointless speeches. The whole package ! Sounds crazy to me .

That's not really up to the host city to choose that, but the IOC, right ? Sure they might try to push a bit for that to happen, but I don't see the IOC dropping its gender equality policy nor expanding the canoeing program anytime soon... Squash, Climbing, Surfing and Karate thick to many boxes to be passed on IMHO. Besides, every time the question was asked, they always answered like multiple sports were on the table anyway. I assume, we will see a similar number of extra sports and events than in Tokyo.

2024 additional sports to be announced by 2019

I didn't see that coming. I don't expect anything to happen though, but it's good, that some don't want to let the all thing just vanish.

Spring games ? (ie splitting the summer games in two)

Yes, they bought themselves some time. But that's it. Time would have been enough indeed - if they whished so. But considering the auto congratulation we've seen yesterday. It's unlikely that anything major will happen between then. My bet: Baku vs Shangai for 2032

The IOC only spared itself for a few years.by awarding the possibly two most ready cities back to back . But then what ? Agenda 2020 failed, it didn't help bringing costs down. If anything, it allowed the games to grow even bigger with the host additional sports (339 events and 11,000+ athletes in Tokyo from a theoric cap of 310 event and 10,500 athletes). For 2032, the issue will be kicking again with no next-to-ready hosts around. The games will once again comes with a massive high price, that probably no democratic country will be ok with. Besides, I don't think that a regional bid (like the Ruhr region proposal) is the answer neither as the possible lesser sporting infrastucture costs will likely be eaten by the extra transportation and security costs. I don't really see a way out tbf.

Honnestly, if no european city manages to reach the final bidding stage like in 2022, it will be for anyone not called Almaty to take. Might not be a bad idea actually. I believe, we will see a french bid for the WOG possibly as early as 2034 or most likely 2038 (my personnal pick beeing Nice).

Fi-NAL-LY

Hem... just checking, every videos from the France TV website are gone too (they were not two months ago). Maybe it's a request from the IOC.

I didn't know about Durban 2022. What a mess. It doesnt look good for any future possible olympic bid from South Africa. By 2022, five of the last six CWG will have been held in either Great Brtian or Australia. I guess the games are stuck between these two countries with the occasional host from Canada or East Asia.

See, you don't like it neither

That's very personnal... and quite contrary to the history of the Games. Many would argue that the modern games have allways been about setting the stage for the best of the best to compete. And, can't we just stop pretending that the proposal is about to annihilate global representation from the olympics, when it really is just about moving anywhere between 150 to 200 quotas (from over 11,000....) Edit: can we also stop prentending the discussion is about slalom and rich countries only, when it is also about combat sports (which are heavely dominated by rich countries as we all know)

Which would either mean: - that the number of olympics athletes will grow tremendously with the cost that comes with it (if you keep the same number of entrants per event) - that in many cases, the qualification process will be of much higher standard that the proper event during the olympics.(if you drop the number of entrants per event)