2014 Olympics location

JonnyCoop said:

Doesn't Georgia rather tend toward political instability?

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In general, yes. However, Borjomi is located smack in the middle of the country, not in any of the contested regions, so it is fairly safe. Also, political situation has arguably gotten much better since the Rose Revolution.

Kazakhstan, I don't know. I get the impression that the overall landscape there is rather bleak.

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Much of Kazakhstan is indeed like that; in fact, Astana where their ****head of a president moved the capital is in an area just like that - all steppes, or a semi-desert. However, Almaty is in a very different region of K. It's on the border with Kyrgyzstan, close to a part-salt part-fresh water lake of Balkhash. Also, mountains are obviously nearby.

I hear Sochi is beautiful, and it would be nice if Russia actually got to host an Olympics that didn't get boycotted by half the world due to an ill-advised political maneuver.

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A thing about having Olympics in Russia is that due to its insane political landscape you can be certain that no matter how bad its economy gets, it would still pull off the awe-inspiring Olympics.

Salzburg isn't too far from Innsbruck, which got the Games twice

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True, but I love Salzburg much more so than Innsbruck.

I say if you're going to award a Winter Olympics to a country that's had them before, put them someplace on the entire oppisite end of the country, or put them where you had them last time.

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Well, you can't have it at the opposite end of the country for Winter Olympics unless you're talking about huge countries like Canada, US, Russia, etc. There just aren't enough places otherwise where there is easy access to mountain slopes needed for some of the competitions.

Jaca, Spain would be my second choice. I love the Spanish sense of style and I think they would just LOOK cool, like Barcelona did.

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Agree. Plus Jaca is right in the Pyrenees, which is a plus.

Sofia? I don't know. I'm neutral on that one. Seems like they've tried for every Olympics every year since the Iron Curtain collapsed. They obviously want them bad.

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Yeah, talk about having something to prove!

Russia would be the best place, and believe me, they would have the Olympics that you've nerver seen before!

Personally in terms of safety I'd worry about Georgia, Kazakhstan, and even Russia, and slightly less so but still concerned about South Korea (because the lunatic north of the border may now well be a nuclear-armed lunatic and is not noted for his stablility and rationality.)

Honestly, I'd like to see Bulgaria get it. Some safety concerns, maybe, a little, but it's a fascinating country and it hasn't hosted the games. Eastern Europe isn't all Russia, and we've seen Spain and Austria before. Second choice is a tie between Russia or South Korea, I suppose. I just can't swallow that Kazakhstan and Georgia have the infrastructure, safety/stability concerns aside, and it would be nice to see some place that's not Western Europe or North America.