In your timeline did the 1996 Olympics occur.

[kato13]

Chicago is trying to get the 2016 Olympics and have a lot of visiting officials here this week. Therefore I have been exposed to a ton of news stories this week about the Olympics.

This got me to thinking of to what would have happened in Atlanta in July 1996 in the T2k timeline. There is also a
possibility that Atlanta might not have gotten the games as they were selected in 1990 after the historical divergence point and the USSR might not have been to happy about the US getting two Olympics in 12 years.

Here are the Cities that tried
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Su...pics#Selection

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

[pmulcahy11b]

I'm thinking there would be one of three possibilities:

1) The Games got called off.

2) The Games took place, but there were a lot of boycotts (particularly by the Soviets and the Warsaw Pact countries), plus a lot of countries that stayed home because world tensions were so high.

3) #1 happened because of #2.

[Targan]

What were the best placed competing city bids behind Atlanta? One of them might make a suitable (or interesting or funny) alternative for the T2K timeline.

I know one thing for sure - the 2000 Olympics wouldn't have happened

[pmulcahy11b]

According to Wikipedia:

Athens, Greece (I know they were very upset over not getting the Games -- it was the 100th anniversary of the Modern Olympics)

Belgrade, Hungary
Manchester, England
Melbourne, Australia
Toronto, Canada

[kato13]

Originally Posted by Targan

What were the best placed competing city bids behind Atlanta? One of them might make a suitable (or interesting or funny) alternative for the T2K timeline.

I know one thing for sure - the 2000 Olympics wouldn't have happened

This is the order the voting finished in
Atlanta, Georgia, United States
Athens, Greece
Toronto, Ontario Canada
Melbourne, Australia
Manchester, United Kingdom
Belgrade, Yugoslavia

However Athens was leading after the first 2 rounds of voting (the lowest vote receiving country gets dropped after each round of voting)

[pmulcahy11b]

Ooops, misplaced Belgrade -- that was an embarrassing mistake!

[Legbreaker]

I tend to think it certainly would have occured, and probably included just about all nations.

In July of 1996, the only countries truely at war were China and the USSR. Sure there were tensions elsewhere, but the European theatre didn't open up until around early October - several months after the games.

Possibly a better question would be did the Commonwealth games (basically all the old British colonies from all over the world) take place in 1998 (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)? I think yes as fuel shortages may not have become so serious that even a token attempt at normality had to be cancelled.

[Legbreaker]

Originally Posted by Targan

I know one thing for sure - the 2000 Olympics wouldn't have happened

Oh I don't know...
We knew Sydney had the Olympics well before any hostilities broke out anywhere, and Australia hasn't been nuked. Could be the government of the day saw a PR opportunity and ran it anyway, albeit SEVERELY scaled back with most "international" athletes already residents of Australia or it's near neighbours.
Might even have a small French team show up and a few from Africa and South America (one hell of a big effort to get there though with near zero likelihood of a return trip).

Yes, I am half joking...but only half.

[Targan]

Just Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific Islands? Yeah I could see Australia running that kind of Olympics... if only to win all the medals and stick it to the Kiwis... again. Unless of course rugby was included at the Olympics that year. We know who would win that gold medal

[Legbreaker]

Hey, it's not Australia's fault nobody turned up! Travel arrangements were their responsibility!