george dubbya's speech and general olympic ranting

Are you trying to imply that panorama won't be doing a special, based solely on my opinion? because I really don't see why they wouldn't

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Neffi - that is a very naive statement. In many ways the IOC is incredibly political. Think back to the Atlanta games. Pretty much the only reason they got the games is because it's Coca Cola's HQ and they're the biggest sponsor of the Olympics. Atlanta bought their games.

There was massive political pressure to award the games to Beijing, nothing to do with China hosting a great Olympics. Just as it was political for Athens to get the 2004 games - there was outrage when they didn't get the '96 games (Atlanta) as the 100 year anniversary.

No, not naive. I clearly stated I don't know enough about the way ICC awards the host city. I had no idea about Atlanta / Coca Cola or any idea of the process until London was involved two years ago.

Read this about Atlanta:

Atlanta used no public money to finance the Games, which cost US$1.8 billion to host. It was the first city in Olympic history to use ticket sales, commercial endorsements, advertising, and private money alone to fund the hosting of the Olympics. The consequence of this, however, was that some felt that the Games in Atlanta were over-commercialized and were less exciting than previous Games.[2]

Although the Games made a financial profit, they were not without problems. Allegations were levelled that Atlanta organizers bribed members of the IOC to obtain the Olympic Games. However, ACOG documents were destroyed before a formal inquiry could be conducted, and the allegations remain unproven. In his defense, ACOG Chairman Billy Payne said, "Atlanta's bidding effort included excessive actions, even thought processes, that today seem inappropriate but, at the time, reflected the prevailing practices in the selection process and an extremely competitive environment."