The Invictus

The frantic world of Olympic bidding has descended on Singapore, and a vote by I.O.C. members Wednesday will decide what many consider the most hotly contested Olympics ever - with New York, Paris, London, Madrid and Moscow vying to win the 2012 Games.

I did some deep dive into the history of modern Olympic games venues, and was surprised at what I found. Let's start with the choice of venues since the advent of the modern olympic games. We will limit our observations only to the Summer games, since the options of venues for the winter games - human will and behind-the-scene-politicking not withstanding - are largely decisions of mother nature (climatic conditions to be more precise).

Olympic Summer Games:

Athens 1896, Paris 1900, St. Louis 1904, London 1908, Stockholm 1912, Antwerp 1920, Paris 1924, Amsterdam 1928, Los Angeles 1932, Berlin 1936, London 1948, Helsinki 1952, Melbourne 1956, Rome 1960, Tokyo 1964, Mexico City 1968, Munich 1972, Montreal 1976, Moscow 1980, Los Angeles 1984, Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992, Atlanta 1996, Sydney 2000, Athens 2004, Beijing 2008.

Notice something strange?

1. The first half of the 20th Century - all but one (1932 Los angeles) olympics were based in Europe. This coincides with Europe's golden period so to say.

2. In the not-so-old history of the modern games, USA has staged 3 games; In fact, USA got 2 games in the last 20 years (1984-2004)! And New York is a hot candidate for the 2012 games!!

3. Out of 26 games (including 2008 Beijing - venue for which is already decided),
14 - NATO Europe;
02 - "Iron Curtain" Europe, of which 1 (Moscow 1980) was boycotted by USA and allies.
05 - Americas (of which 3 were in USA)
05 - Rest of the big wide world.

See how the olympic movement has been effectively close-held by certain blocs? A token distribution here and there (Tokyo, Seoul, Beijing) notwithstanding, it really comes across as the Olympic games of the western Europe & USA, i.e. NATO.

And the latest debate on candidates for 2012 does not change any equation. It's again a battle between Paris and New York (the frontrunners), with London, Madrid and Moscow filling up the rest of the list. If economic status and prosperity is an indicator of olympics venues, then why Europe? After all the predictions of how this would be the Asian century, sadly, there is no Asian candidate. Presumably because, Beijing, an asian city, gets to host the previous edition, and the logic goes that you cannot have 2 successive olympics in the same continent (huh? care to explain this logic with regard to historical precendents please?)

Anyways, given this short-sighted list of 5 candidate cities, am yet again surprised to hear that Paris and New York are the frontrunners. And not Moscow. The same city which got to host the games once in 1980, but was robbed of participation from the western bloc. You will recollect that 1980 games were really a no show, thanks to the diktats from the NATO allied countries barring their sportspeople from participating. Isn't this a wonderful chance to redeem the past by hosting the games in Moscow?