Lord Almaty!

Well, the Winter Olympics in Sochi are winding down, and I'll be blogging just a little more about the Games before they conclude tomorrow.  After they're over, I'll probably take a little break from blogging.  It happens with every winter Olympiad; by the time it's done, I'm all blogged out. 

By now, you've probably that the United States men's hockey team got shut out, 5-0, by Finland in the bronze medal game.  Oh, well, they came in fourth overall, they only lost twice, and they left a record almost as impressive as their female counterparts.  We should be proud of our men's ice hockey team, just as we should not be proud of our men's field hockey team.

Uh, guys? You're not going to trash your hotel rooms, are you?

Now, to the future.  Pyeongchang, South Korea, is getting ready to host the next Winter Olympics in 2018, and after a winter not unlike the one we in the American Northeast have been having, the Koreans are certain that there will be plenty of snow and cold - unlike the weather at Sochi - when it's their turn.  With climate change, though, that may not be a given. :-O  

And 2022?  The former capital city of Kazakhstan still has Olympic fever.  Almaty, also known as Alma-Ata and best known as the city where Stalin banished Trotsky in 1928 before having him expelled from the Soviet Union altogether (Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940), made a bid for the 2014 Winter Olympics but lost out to Sochi, but the Kazakhs are trying again for 2022 and they think they may have the advantage going into the bids for that year.  Two European cities are also bidding for those Games - Cracow, Poland, and Oslo, Norway (site of the 1952 Winter Olympics and the only national capital to host the Winter Games, and no, Sarajevo doesn't count because Bosnia wasn't an independent country in 1984), and they're likely to give Almaty the most competition.  Two other cities are also bidding - Lviv and Beijing.  But Lviv is in Ukraine, which is undergoing internecine strife that could erupt into civil war any day now, while Beijing just hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics - too soon, China!  Also, the next two Olympiads, the 2018 Winter Games and the 2020 Summer Games, are both being held in the Far East - the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, as noted, and the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo - so there would be some obvious reluctance to award the 2022 Games to another Far Eastern city.

No, I think Almaty will get the nod when the International Olympic Committee awards the 2022 Winter Games next year.  They have the facilities, they have the ambition, and the city is keeping the cost for the bid - a growing concern among Olympic host hopefuls these days - as low and as economical as possible.  And after all the money the Russians spent to make Sochi a reality, the Kazakhs are looking to present a working example of a more economical, low-cost Winter Olympiad.  But before you place trust in my prediction, just remember that I once thought back in the early 1990s that America would have high-speed rail by 2000.   

(Note: Speaking of America . . ..  Although Denver and Reno expressed interest in bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics, the United States Olympic Committee made it clear that they would forget about a 2022 bid because the consider a 2024 Summer Games bid to be more important.  Go Philadelphia! :-) )