OT - 2018 Winter Olympics are awarded
After repeated failed bids, Pyeongchang, South Korea will finally host the Winter Games. It easily won the vote over Munich (which would have been the first city to host both Summer and Winter Olympics) and Annecy (which would have been the fourth French Alps city to host). Good for them. Europe and North America have together hosted, or will host, 20 of the first 22 Winter Olympics.
Next: Winter Games in the Southern Hemisphere? There are snow-capped mountains in New Zealand and parts of South America. They'd have to change the schedule, but if they can do it for the Summer Games, they can do it for this, too. I'd like to see it happen.
winter in the southern hemisphere is during july and august, which would mess up a lot of things.
I'm going to go way out on a limb here and assume that's what JM was referring to when he said "they'd have to change the schedule."
When I first read it I thought it said Pyongyang (Capital of North Korea). Damn that would have been an interesting Olympics.
I saw a Korean city starting with "Py..." referenced and immediately fought the urge to poop in my pants. And then I thought to myself "the Olympic Village food sure is going to be shitty".
But all is well. S. Korea gets a Winter Olympics bid and can stick a middle finger up at Pyongyang when all the attention - and money - starts rolling in.
I was in Munich 2 months ago, and Olympic fever was definitely high. Lots of bummed Bavarians today.
...to cause a ruckus and offend any supporters of the current N. Korean regime. It's pretty obvious that N. Korea is a terrible place right now, and my immediate/erroneous reaction was "how could N. Korea get the Olympics?" since it's ruled by a despotic monster and can't even feed its population. I'm sure N. Korean food isn't shitty...it's probably quite good. But when there's a shortage of food and a country depends on foreign aid to feed the population, the current quality of food can't be too great. Sorry if people took it the wrong way. I sure hope this situation changes soon and Pyonyang can legitmately have a chance to host a future Olympics sans its current leader.
NO POLITICS
I don't think pointing out that North Korea is a sucky place would violate the "No Politics" rule. However, thinking the Olympics would somehow improve the situation is kind of naive. The Germans didn't exactly ditch the whole Nazi thing after Jesse Owens came to town.
Came away from theirs looking like a human rights abuser either.
Except for hockey, the winter olympics are irrevelant.
because of hockey, the winter olympics are the shit.
I can't wait to see South Korea's automatically qualifying men's hockey team play Canada, at least for the first 10 minutes. I plan on turning it off after it's 30-0.
I am more excited about the American flag being hoisted and the playing of the Star Spangled Banner in a country that refused to have the name America in the movie title Captain America.
I expect the Canadians will do things like, I dunno...bend their knees to skate, skate hard, keep two hands on their sticks...fancy hockey stuff like that.
n00b fight!
Duuuude: how can you possibly not get behind the Jamaican Bobsled Team.
A bunch of sports you can die in while competing.
snow/ice adds a twist of failure that running on a dry track does not ... plus i am a skier... in all i really hope slc hosts another games in my lifetime, i would love to go
I'd rather just watch Cool Runnings again.
Let's all hope that NHL players are still playing in the Olympics by then
We'll get blog reports from CRex?
since he lives in the states and pyeongchan is in BFE even if you live in seoul