The IOC is "ready to allow some Summer Olympic sports events to be held outside the host country," according to Stephen Wilson of the AP. The new option is "among 40 recommendations" released today as part of IOC President Thomas Bach's "reform agenda." Under the proposals, the IOC would allow "the organization of entire sports and disciplines outside the host city or, in exceptional cases, outside the host country notably for reasons of geography and sustainability." That "would be a first" for the Summer Games. IOC rules "already allow for events to be held in a bordering country" for the Winter Games. The recommendations -- called "Olympic Agenda 2020" -- also include measures to "revamp the bidding procedure, make the games less costly, revise the sports program, and create an Olympic television network" (AP, 11/18).
MASS HYSTERIA? In Boston, Yvonne Abraham wrote if chosen by the USOC as the U.S. candidate to host the '24 Games, the city "will be well along the road to hosting an Olympics -- a vast, complex, and incredibly costly undertaking -- without ever having had a meaningful public conversation about it." Abraham: "How nuts is that? ... What became of this vaunted civic discourse?" The community meetings that Boston Olympic Committee Chair John Fish "said would happen in November have not materialized." Olympic backers "say they are truly committed to having the debate, but that the timing is wrong" as Boston's bid "isn’t ripe yet." Fish said, "None of this stuff we've been trying to sort through is cast in stone. So it doesn’t make sense to present it to people in a detailed way. We are not at that level" (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/16). Also in Boston, Scott Kirsner wrote, "I love the Olympics -- just on my TV, not in my town." Boston 2024 organizers have estimated it would cost $4.5B "in private funding to build the Olympic venues." Kirsner: "Instead of just saying no, I propose spending 1 percent of that sum -- $45 million -- on a different competition. Call it the Innolympics: a set of contests to innovate and upgrade the city. Rather than having urban enhancements as a hoped-for byproduct of hosting the Olympics, we would make them the main event" (BOSTON GLOBE, 11/16).
