We’re out

by sam on 07/6/2005

It was announced overnight that NYC was eliminated in the second round of olympic voting. I can’t say that I was particularly surprised, but I did feel a little (very little) twinge of regret.

I was always of two minds when it came to the olympic bid. The proud New Yorker in me was always, "yeah, of course we should host the olympics. We’re the greatest freakin’ city in the world! I can’t believe we haven’t hosted them before." Then of course, the part of me that actually has to live here day in and day out was not exactly looking forward to 7 years of olympic construction mixed with an influx of an extra several million people. Which is pretty much how everyone else felt as well. Doctoroff never managed any sort of groundswell, in part because of the west side fiasco, but also because there were too many folks who were already plotting how to get out of town if we actually won the bid.

And also, in Singapore, every other bid city sent their country’s leader and we sent…Mayor Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton? Don’t get me wrong, I personally much prefer the two of them to Bush, but when Moscow sends Putin, London sends Blair, France sends Chirac and Spain sends their Prime Minister, it just looks like we’ve got a lack of national commitment when our delegation’s highest luminaries are a city Mayor and one of a hundred Senators. It also served to emphasize, yet again, how separate NYC is from the rest of the country.

They’re discussing it on the radio now, and are saying a few other things about the process, including that NY’s bid was very "ego centric", i.e., all about the awesomeness of New York, whereas bids like Paris’ were much more "international" in that they emphasized that many of its "temporary" structures could be dismantled and sent to a place like Africa to help with a future bid on that continent, which up until now has been considered an impossibility.

And they’re announcing the bid right now on the radio. It’s down to London and Paris. and it’s…

LONDON.

Wow. I was sure that Paris would get it.

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