According to a new poll taken by Gravis Marketing on April 9 and 10, numbers have not moved at all for support of Boston 2024. According to the poll sample of 2,182 Massachusetts residents 37% support bringing the games to Boston and 49% do not with 14% unsure.
According to the new poll, in a question about use of taxpayer dollars to bail out the Olympics The margin is 66%-24% against using public funds.
Poll respondents support a statewide referendum on the 2024 games by a margin of 61%-23% while poll respondents do not think that the Olympics would not benefit the state by a 46%-40% margin.
Gravis Marketing is a non partisan Florida based research firm. This poll was compiled for the Howie Carr radio network.
The other poll taken by WBUR April 10-13 of 509 registered voters living in Boston area inside/along route 128 has support for a Boston games at 40% while 50% oppose. This is an improvement from March poll numbers of 36% supporting the bid while 52% oppose. In the city of Boston support is at 47% while 41% oppose. This is the first time since January more people support the games inside of the city of Boston! Also the poll indicates 90% of respondents think there will be cost overruns.
Wednesday, April 15, 2015
Monday, April 6, 2015
Olympic updates - AVP Beach Volleyball And Athlete Update
In 2015 all AVP beach finals will be televised by NBC and the NBC Sports Network. There will be 17.5 hours of coverage on NBC's networks. NBC will televise 10 hours while the NBC Sports Network will televise 7.5 hours. Universal Sports will also air the AVP as well. NBC Sports live will stream the finals online. The first AVP Finals televised by NBC will be the New Orleans Open on May 22-24. There are currently 7 stops on the AVP tour in 2015.
The 6 other planned US AVP Tour Stops are:
New York City Open - July 17-19
Seattle Open - Aug. 7-9
Manhattan Beach Open - Aug. 14-16
Chicago Open - Aug. 28-30
Cincinnati Open - Sept. 4-6
AVP Championships at Huntington Beach - Sept. 11-13
Also the AVP will be presenting the FIVB St. Petersburg Grand Slam held from June 15-21.
Athlete Update:
Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang has announced his retirement at age 31. Xiang won gold at the 2004 Athens games in the 110M hurdles. Injuries kept him from medaling at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
The 6 other planned US AVP Tour Stops are:
New York City Open - July 17-19
Seattle Open - Aug. 7-9
Manhattan Beach Open - Aug. 14-16
Chicago Open - Aug. 28-30
Cincinnati Open - Sept. 4-6
AVP Championships at Huntington Beach - Sept. 11-13
Also the AVP will be presenting the FIVB St. Petersburg Grand Slam held from June 15-21.
Athlete Update:
Chinese hurdler Liu Xiang has announced his retirement at age 31. Xiang won gold at the 2004 Athens games in the 110M hurdles. Injuries kept him from medaling at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games.
Tuesday, March 31, 2015
Olympic updates - Doping samples and Boston 2024
Doping samples
The IOC is going to retest hundreds of doping samples from the 2008 Beijing games as part of a crackdown to catch cheaters. The IOC has retested a small amount of the 4,000 samples from the Beijing games already and now has a window of 10 years to retest doping samples under a new world anti-doping code. The old code limited doping testing to 8 years. The IOC hopes to retest the majority of the Beijing games samples before the statute of limitations runs out in 2018. The IOC realistically would like to test several high profile athletes competing in Rio in 2016. No positive tests have been found from any Beijing 2008 samples as of now.
Testing samples from the 2004 Athens games wrapped up in 2012 and five athletes were caught and stripped of their medals.
The IOC has already carried out retesting on a few samples from the 2010 Vancouver games and 2012 London games with no positive results. For the 2016 Rio games, the IOC will be testing roughly 5,000 and that number is the same number tested in London.
Boston 2024 Update
The USOC selected Boston as the US city to bid on the 2024 Summer Olympic games back in early January. Since then support for these games has been declining. In January 51% supported the bid and 33% disapproved. A poll was taken in February and those numbers slipped to 44% approve and 46 % disapprove. The last poll taken this month(March) with 36% approve and 52% disapprove. Boston 2024, the organization leading the bid, has agreed to a statewide referendum to take place in Nov. 2016. For the IOC to consider strongly the Boston bid, approval ratings need to be close to 70%. Hamburg, Germany has officially decided to bid on the 2024 games and Hamburg has approval ratings of 64%. Boston 2024 has said the bid will not go forward If the majority of statewide voters don't approve. They won't go forward if there is not a majority of voters approving the bid within the City of Boston itself. Boston has to submit their final bid to the IOC by January 2016. This means if the referendum fails the USOC will not be able to bid on the 2024 games at all.
Boston 2024 has an extensive public relations and social media/marketing campaign set up to try and stop the decline in poll numbers. Boston 2024 is led by John Fish. Fish is the CEO of Suffolk Construction. It is the largest construction company in the northeast.
There are several opposition groups that have formed. No Boston Olympics and No Boston 2024 are two of the groups. Bostonian's say they think they will be on the hook for cost overruns while Boston 2024 says there will be none. Opposition groups plan to talk to state legislators who could introduce legislation to make sure state taxpayers are not responsible for cost overruns. Boston 2024 has said that they won't submit a final bid if they cannot insure the bid against overruns. Boston 2024 has a 10 point plan of a cost effective, compact Olympics with temporary venues and plenty of jobs and housing created. Bostonian's do not want resources taken away from their city and are unsure about a transportation system that shut down several times during the winter of 2014/15.
Boston 2024 has said they have a plan to ease the concerns of Bostonians through 20 meetings spread out through Boston and the State of Massachusetts over the next several months. Boston 2024 will listen to concerns and change the bid to meet Bostonians needs.
Boston 2024 has recruited over 1,000 volunteers to fan out all over the city to pitch the 2024 Games to Bostonians.
The latest development is a rumor that the USOC might pull the bid on Boston 2024 soon if poll numbers don't go up. This was reported in a CNBC tweet. The USOC has denied the report.
Lastly, 2012 Olympian Jordyn Wieber has retired from gymnastics at the age of 19.
The IOC is going to retest hundreds of doping samples from the 2008 Beijing games as part of a crackdown to catch cheaters. The IOC has retested a small amount of the 4,000 samples from the Beijing games already and now has a window of 10 years to retest doping samples under a new world anti-doping code. The old code limited doping testing to 8 years. The IOC hopes to retest the majority of the Beijing games samples before the statute of limitations runs out in 2018. The IOC realistically would like to test several high profile athletes competing in Rio in 2016. No positive tests have been found from any Beijing 2008 samples as of now.
Testing samples from the 2004 Athens games wrapped up in 2012 and five athletes were caught and stripped of their medals.
The IOC has already carried out retesting on a few samples from the 2010 Vancouver games and 2012 London games with no positive results. For the 2016 Rio games, the IOC will be testing roughly 5,000 and that number is the same number tested in London.
Boston 2024 Update
The USOC selected Boston as the US city to bid on the 2024 Summer Olympic games back in early January. Since then support for these games has been declining. In January 51% supported the bid and 33% disapproved. A poll was taken in February and those numbers slipped to 44% approve and 46 % disapprove. The last poll taken this month(March) with 36% approve and 52% disapprove. Boston 2024, the organization leading the bid, has agreed to a statewide referendum to take place in Nov. 2016. For the IOC to consider strongly the Boston bid, approval ratings need to be close to 70%. Hamburg, Germany has officially decided to bid on the 2024 games and Hamburg has approval ratings of 64%. Boston 2024 has said the bid will not go forward If the majority of statewide voters don't approve. They won't go forward if there is not a majority of voters approving the bid within the City of Boston itself. Boston has to submit their final bid to the IOC by January 2016. This means if the referendum fails the USOC will not be able to bid on the 2024 games at all.
Boston 2024 has an extensive public relations and social media/marketing campaign set up to try and stop the decline in poll numbers. Boston 2024 is led by John Fish. Fish is the CEO of Suffolk Construction. It is the largest construction company in the northeast.
There are several opposition groups that have formed. No Boston Olympics and No Boston 2024 are two of the groups. Bostonian's say they think they will be on the hook for cost overruns while Boston 2024 says there will be none. Opposition groups plan to talk to state legislators who could introduce legislation to make sure state taxpayers are not responsible for cost overruns. Boston 2024 has said that they won't submit a final bid if they cannot insure the bid against overruns. Boston 2024 has a 10 point plan of a cost effective, compact Olympics with temporary venues and plenty of jobs and housing created. Bostonian's do not want resources taken away from their city and are unsure about a transportation system that shut down several times during the winter of 2014/15.
Boston 2024 has said they have a plan to ease the concerns of Bostonians through 20 meetings spread out through Boston and the State of Massachusetts over the next several months. Boston 2024 will listen to concerns and change the bid to meet Bostonians needs.
Boston 2024 has recruited over 1,000 volunteers to fan out all over the city to pitch the 2024 Games to Bostonians.
The latest development is a rumor that the USOC might pull the bid on Boston 2024 soon if poll numbers don't go up. This was reported in a CNBC tweet. The USOC has denied the report.
Lastly, 2012 Olympian Jordyn Wieber has retired from gymnastics at the age of 19.
Tuesday, March 24, 2015
500 Days Until Rio Games!
Today marks the 500th day until the Rio 2016 Olympic Games! The games will be held August 5-21 2016.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
IOC considers cutting track and field events from Olympics
In December 2014 when the IOC passed their Olympic 2020 agenda I was not aware that the IOC was thinking of cutting any events to cap the summer Olympics participants to 10,500 across 310 events for future Olympics. This story eluded me for two months until I read a tweet from Dwight Stones that the IOC is considering just that, cutting major track and field events in time for the Tokyo 2020 summer games. The events being considered being dropped are: 200M, 10000M, shot put, triple jump and 20K race walking. The IOC wants to cut 231 athletes from the 2,231 track athletes that competed at the 2012 London games, leaving 2000 athletes as a cap for track and field at future summer games. Track and Field has the most athletes competing with over 20% of all athletes participating at the summer games. This is so the IOC can add more sports like surfing and karate that suit younger viewers at future games.
I learned the 10000M event is being cut out from European meets so that may be ok for the IOC to cull along with any race walking events. The 200M is a marquee event and should not be tampered with along with the shot put and triple jump. I'm hoping the IAAF stands up to fight this injustice to the sport of track and field and the history of the Olympic Games.
I learned the 10000M event is being cut out from European meets so that may be ok for the IOC to cull along with any race walking events. The 200M is a marquee event and should not be tampered with along with the shot put and triple jump. I'm hoping the IAAF stands up to fight this injustice to the sport of track and field and the history of the Olympic Games.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Boston 2024!
The USOC has chosen Boston as the USA bid city to host the 2024 summer Olympic Games! Boston was chosen over Los Angeles, Washington and San Fransisco. Boston was chosen because of the frugality of their bid. Boston will depend upon area colleges to house Olympic athletes. Area colleges and universities in the Boston area will use venues built for the games after the games have finished. The USOC will submit Boston's bid by Sept. 2015. Other international cities that may bid on the 2024 summer Olympic Games are: Paris, Rome, Istanbul, Hamburg and Berlin Germany and finally Melbourne, Australia.
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Olympic Updates
This blog has not been updated in 6 months.. Here are two major updates at the end of 2014.
Earlier this month - On Dec. 7 and 8 in Monaco, the Olympics 2020 agenda was passed unanimously by the IOC.
The biggest change would be the IOC allowing two cities within the host country to host the games, or two countries together can host the games. This was passed so smaller countries could host the games. It was also passed to lower the cost of future games.
A proposal was passed in the Olympics 2020 agenda to reform the bidding process. Bidding will be more like an invitation process, there will be less presentations made by games bidding cities to lower the cost, along with more costs incurred by the IOC related to this process. Cities are invited to present an Olympic bid that matches their economic and long term needs.
Sustainability of the bids will be stressed as several cities pulled out of the running to host the 2022 winter Olympic games because of cost. Emphasis on bids will appeal to cities that already have the facilities to host the games instead of the cost to build new facilities that rarely are used after the games by former host cities.
Also the IOC voted to cap the amount of Individual sport disciplines and athletes but allowing the number of sports to grow from the current 28 sports allowed.
An anti-discriminatory clause was updated to include sexual orientation in response to the Russian exclusion of gay athletes at the 2014 Sochi games.
An all Olympic channel will be launched at some time in the future.
The USOC has decided to bid on the 2024 summer Olympic games and the four host cities are San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Boston. A decision on which USA city that will represent the USA in the bidding process on the 2024 Summer Olympic games will be made in January 2015. Each city made hour long presentations earlier this month. A decision by the IOC will come in 2017.
Earlier this month - On Dec. 7 and 8 in Monaco, the Olympics 2020 agenda was passed unanimously by the IOC.
The biggest change would be the IOC allowing two cities within the host country to host the games, or two countries together can host the games. This was passed so smaller countries could host the games. It was also passed to lower the cost of future games.
A proposal was passed in the Olympics 2020 agenda to reform the bidding process. Bidding will be more like an invitation process, there will be less presentations made by games bidding cities to lower the cost, along with more costs incurred by the IOC related to this process. Cities are invited to present an Olympic bid that matches their economic and long term needs.
Sustainability of the bids will be stressed as several cities pulled out of the running to host the 2022 winter Olympic games because of cost. Emphasis on bids will appeal to cities that already have the facilities to host the games instead of the cost to build new facilities that rarely are used after the games by former host cities.
Also the IOC voted to cap the amount of Individual sport disciplines and athletes but allowing the number of sports to grow from the current 28 sports allowed.
An anti-discriminatory clause was updated to include sexual orientation in response to the Russian exclusion of gay athletes at the 2014 Sochi games.
An all Olympic channel will be launched at some time in the future.
The USOC has decided to bid on the 2024 summer Olympic games and the four host cities are San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington DC and Boston. A decision on which USA city that will represent the USA in the bidding process on the 2024 Summer Olympic games will be made in January 2015. Each city made hour long presentations earlier this month. A decision by the IOC will come in 2017.
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