We think traffic in Hampton Roads and the DC area is bad now-wait till they bring the Olympics here in 2024. It looks like Richmond could be a strong contender in the location of the 2024 Olympic games. This could mean both good and bad news for the Hampton Roads residents that intend to drive the city streets at all during the event.
Olympic games are often a good reason to spruce up an area giving it a major face lift and will also draw in a huge number of tourists which means income. It will also mean more traffic and tourists that will increase the level of overall stupidity that is running the streets.
For those Virginia Beach MINI fans out there, it could also mean seeing some of the coolest MINI related gadgets ever.
2024 Summer Games Could Olympic events come to Richmond?
WASHINGTON - The inconveniences of the daily routine in the nation's capital will be a selling point as Washington, D.C., makes a push to host the 2024 Olympics - a move that could include Richmond.
"We are the safest and most secure city in the world," said Bob Sweeney, president of DC 2024. "The largest expense of any Olympic Games is security, and the fact that we've got it pretty built in to our everyday life here in Washington, we would leverage that asset tremendously to put on this high-profile event."
Sweeney announced today the formation of a nonprofit group aimed at making D.C. the first American city to host the Summer Games since Atlanta in 1996, and the first to host an Olympics since the Winter Games were held in Salt Lake City in 2002.
The bid has a long way to go. Washington was one of 35 U.S. cities to receive a letter from the U.S. Olympic Committee to gauge interest, and Sweeney expects about 10 to step forward as serious candidates. The USOC hasn't even decided for certain that it wants to bid for the 2024 Games, which will be awarded by the International Olympic Committee in 2017.
"They need to make sure there is a strong horse to ride," Sweeney said. "And we certainly intend to be that."
Sweeney said the events would stretch from Baltimore to Richmond, but would be mostly concentrated around D.C.
Jon Lugbill, executive director of the Richmond Sports Backers, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch this morning that he had not been contacted by Sweeney or other representatives of DC 2024 but would welcome being included in their discussions.
"D.C. would be an awesome place to do it," Lugbill said. "When you have great public venues in public gathering spaces and public art, places like Washington just jump out as forerunners."
Lugbill, a member of the 1992 U.S. Olympic whitewater canoeing team who has visited numerous Summer Games since then, said Richmond could be suitable to hold shooting competitions or certain indoor venues that require an arena.
The city has been discussing the possibility of replacing the Richmond Coliseum for many years but has made little progress. As is typically the case in the Summer Games, "Very few existing venues would be used in an Olympics in 2024," Lugbill said.
Lugbill also spoke enthusiastically about the possibility of using Brown's Island to construct a beach volleyball venue, but he said using the James River for whitewater competitions would be unreasonable. Olympics officials generally require whitewater venues to be either artificial or on a dam-controlled river, Lugbill said, and either of those setups wouldn't make sense on a river that already has natural rapids running through downtown Richmond.
Nonetheless, Lugbill said, Richmond has a number of realistic possibilities to offer as a site supporting a bid by Washington, a city he described as ideal for the Summer Olympics.
"Washington is set up for walking around and for public gathering places," he said. "It's one of the few American cities that does."
Lugbill said a major part of the equation for DC 2024 will be fostering cooperation between the District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia to pull off the move.
"How do you get all three to buy in?" Lugbill said. "But there could be some good opportunities, and I think D.C. would be a tremendous place."
Already having announced their interest in being U.S. host cities for 2024 are Los Angeles, which hosted the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, Philadelphia and Tulsa, Okla. San Diego wants to host a cross-border Olympics with Mexican neighbor Tijuana. Other potential 2024 contenders from around the world include Paris; Rome; Doha, Qatar; and a city in South Africa.
Washington made a push for the 2012 Games a decade ago and was thought to be the favorite to be the U.S. representative, but the USOC chose New York instead.
There was concern at the time that the D.C. bid was tainted by hearings held by Congress in connection with the Salt Lake City bribery scandal, the thought being that the IOC would not want to put the Olympics in the city where its then-president, Juan Antonio Samaranch, was grilled by lawmakers under oath.
New York went on to finish fourth in the international bidding, losing out to eventual winner London. Chicago made a bid for 2016 and suffered a stinging first-round exit, with Rio de Janeiro winning the games.
Chicago's defeat was blamed partly on a revenue-sharing feud between the USOC and IOC. The two sides have since resolved the dispute, and USOC leaders have worked hard to improve their standing in the international Olympic community.
"It's a different USOC than it was, certainly, for Chicago," Sweeney said.
Sweeney, a former president of the Greater Washington Sports Alliance, helped out with D.C.'s 2012 bid and said he has no concerns about the political problems that hurt that effort.
He pointed out that Washington was recently chosen to host a major Olympic meeting - the general assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees - in 2015.
D.C. is also making a push to host the 2017 fencing world championships, which would be timely if Thomas Bach, a former German fencer, is chosen as the next IOC president in an election next month.
Sweeney said he hopes to raise $3 million to $5 million to support the D.C. bid by the end of 2014. He estimates the cost of hosting the Olympics in D.C. would range from $3.5 billion to $6 billion, although he expected it would be toward the lower end because a good deal of the infrastructure is already in place.
There will be the need, however, for a new stadium to host the opening ceremony and track and field. Sweeney said he has met with the Washington Redskins, whose lease at their current stadium in Maryland expires in 2026. D.C. leaders will be pushing hard for the team to come back to the city at that time, so a stadium built for the Olympics could become an NFL stadium shortly afterward.
Otherwise, DC 2024 boasts that the area has "more sporting facilities in a 40-mile radius than any other city in the U.S." and "more than 100,000 hotel rooms."
"We are the only major capital city in the world," Sweeney said, "not to have hosted the games yet."
Source: [timesdispatch.com]
Checkered Flag fans out there, how do you feel about the extra attention that our area is going to get if the Olympics head our way? I know that many in the Checkered Flag MINI community will be very excited to see what gadget get used for this upcoming event. I love the idea of seeing some of the items, like the javelin retriever in person.