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The Olympics Effect
5. London, U.K., Summer 2012: The Sensible Olympics
Going for gold: You'd think there'd be a great sense of history driving the 2012 Games, as they will make London the only city to have hosted the Olympics three times. Within Britain, however, the Games are being promoted primarily as a means of massive urban renewal, with the development of large sections of the economically derelict Lower Lea Valley, three miles north of Central London. At $18.3 billion, the estimated infrastructure costs will be less than half of Beijing's, leading one to wonder if the Brits will set a standard for fiscal responsibility or just prove to be really cheap. Perhaps a hint can be found in the largely negative responses to the designs for the venues: "Tragically underwhelming," the Times of London architecture critic called the Olympic Stadium, which appears to be clad in bubble wrap.
Tourism legacy: Visitors may benefit from the eventual conversion of the Olympic Park into what is claimed will be the largest urban park built in Europe in the past 150 years. The 500-acre space will consist largely of open meadows and parkland interlaced with bike and pedestrian paths.
Results: Silver. An undistinguished but probably solvent effort will mostly help locals — which is fine, because visitors are finding their dollars can hardly stretch to a plate of fish and chips these days.
6. Nagano, Japan, Winter 1998: The Commuter Olympics
Going for gold: A city of about 378,000 people, Nagano was the first Winter Games host city chosen specifically because it was big enough to avoid many of the infrastructure challenges that faced small towns such as Lillehammer, the previous host. For a certain segment of the television audience, Nagano was most notable for the official Olympics debut of snowboarding. (The gold medal winner, of course, tested positive for marijuana.) It produced some interesting architecture, too, in particular the M-Wave, the speed-skating arena whose roof looks like waves or mountain crests — although even more visually arresting was the backdrop of real mountains.
Tourism legacy: With a total price tag estimated at $12.5 billion, Nagano was unusually costly for a Winter Games, in part because of the construction of a bullet train that more than halved the trip time from Tokyo to 90 minutes. There is some thought that the train may have hurt the hotel business in Nagano, however, by making day trips from Tokyo possible.
Results: Silver. The Olympic limelight helped the city's slumping economy for a year or two before it fell back again.
7. Sydney, Australia, Summer 2000: The Fun Olympics
Going for gold: Although following Atlanta would have made almost any host city look good, Sydney did stage a very popular Summer Games, and in the process was able to show the world that it was not just the Land Down Under, but a hip, happening place, where wine no longer came by the box, and bush fare had to compete with haute cuisine. While you'd think the city that produced the Sydney Opera House could have come up with more creative Olympic architecture, it is hard to fault a design inspired, as the Olympic Stadium supposedly was, by the Australian slouch hat, or akubra, a type of headgear favored by, among others, Indiana Jones. Fortunately, Sydney's $6 billion in infrastructure costs also got the city, among other things, an upgraded airport, new rail link, and ferry system.
Tourism legacy: For a few years after the Games, it appeared that for Sydney the Olympics Effect might turn into the Olympics Bust, as the Olympic Park was slow to live up to its promise of becoming a sports, entertainment and business center. However, the recent announcement that the Accor hotel group is planning to build a five-star property at the park is just one sign things have turned around.
Results: Gold. The Aussies wrestle crocodiles, invented Vegemite and saw Mel Gibson through his teenage years. How could there have been any doubt that they could organize a sporting event?
8. Salt Lake City, Utah, Winter 2002: The Corrupt OlympicsGoing for gold:
Salt Lake City was certainly a host that believed, desperately, in the economic benefit of the Olympics Effect. It demonstrated this, after several failed bid attempts dating back to 1972, when local organizers were found to have bribed International Olympic Committee members (six of whom were later ousted) in order to secure the bid for 2002. Some $310 million of the nearly $1.9 billion in total costs was spent on security, as it was, after all, just five months beyond 9/11. No amount of money, however, could suppress such apocryphal and humorously intended stories as the one about the results of one of the events being found, ahead of time, in an Al Qaeda cave in Afghanistan.
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Tourism legacy: In addition to a number of excellent snow-sports venues, there's the Olympic Oval, where even novices can learn to speed-skate on what is said to be the fastest ice in the world. Salt Lake City also came away with the Grand America Hotel, considered one of the finest accommodations in town, plus a mall/cultural center known as The Gateway. Some view the slight liberalizing of Utah's liquor laws — which locals are quick to point out are less strict than, say, Iran's — to be another legacy of the Games. Others, however, argue that with the lowest drunk-driving accident rate in the nation, it was a change they were happy to do without.
Results: Bronze. The games made $56 million in profit, but at the cost of leaving the citizens of the six countries whose members were expelled from the International Olympic Committee (Ecuador, Sudan, Congo, Mali, Chile, and Samoa) aghast at the knowledge that their representatives could have been corrupted.
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