I was thinking about the olympics again yesterday. It occurs to me that, after last year, we brits are now in the not unhappy position of observer: that is, now we have had our olympic moment, we can sit back for a while and let other counties bid. Given London is the first city to host three games, I don’t think the IOC will be awarding another olympics to London any time soon; and, if we ar honest, there isn’t really another city in the UK which is big enough or has the infrastructure to host such a massive event. Thus, our mission having been gloriously accomplished last summer, it’s time to sit back and watch others fight it out.

What interests me, though, is that it is indeed a fight: Hosting the olympics brings a great amount of prestige to a country. Despite the expense, the right to host the olympics is keenly fought over, as hosting them brings a sense of pride to a country. Moreover, I get the impression that, after last year, the competition is now even more intense for the other european capitals. I was reading last night that, among others, Berlin, Paris and Rome all plan to bid for the games of 2024, as does new york. I kind of think that they might be at least partly motivated by London-envy: both paris and new york lost to London in their bids to host the 2012 games, and I suspect all four cities would like what London had last year. Of course, they will also have their own individual reasons too: in 2024, as I touched upon here, it will have been a full century since paris last hosted the olympics, so Parisiens will want to catch up with their great rivals in London; Berlin will want to exorcise the daemons of 1936 and 1972; New York, as I note here, has never hosted the games and I get the impression that they are extra eager to do so after what to them was a humiliation in losing he bid to us; as for Rome, which last hosted the games in 1960, well, they too want a piece of the olympic pie.

Thus we have four major world cities, three capitals and one global business centre, all competing for the same event. Is it just me, or is that not potentially very interesting indeed? Who will the ioc go for, and how will the disappointed parties react? All four cities seem to have a vested interest in hosting the games: they all seek both the cudos and the financial gain. This is a source of national pride at a time when governments all over the world are going through rough patches, so any government will see it as highly desirable to win these games. Therefore, although they are still twelve years away, and we have the host of the 2020 games to resolve yet, we will see a very tight competition for the 2024 games start quite soon. It interests me that the IOC seems to hold an extraordinary amount of power, given the importance of it’s decision to individual cities and countries. It also seems to me that their decision also gives us considerable insight into the prevailing attitudes to and tween various respective states My bet is sparks will fly over this. And we brits get to sit back and watch events unfold, trying to work out the geopolitical implications of the IOC’s decision.