What if Detroit had hosted a Summer Olympics?

[cabasse]

Originally Posted by mhays

"Atlanta" comes from Greek mythology. That might be the source of some naming in other countries.

Originally Posted by iheartthed

The tapas bar in Barcelona appears to be named after a soccer team that is not Atlanta United of the MLS. I don't think the team its named after has a relation to the city of Atlanta, but I could be wrong. Also not entirely sure that the real estate firm in Madrid is directly named after the city of Atlanta. Cafeteria Atlanta does seem to be named for Atlanta, Georgia. The Coca Cola picture plastered on it seems to be an obvious connection.

right - atalanta and i assume atalanta fc in lombardi, italy. edit, actually it looks like there's some other club called "atlanta raval" but i can't find much info about it online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYgbyS-W5z4

sorry for the diversion

[PhillyRising]

I wonder what Denver might have been had they not backed out of hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics. Now Rocky Mountain rival Salt Lake City is going to host a second Olympics this century.

They won the bid and then backed out after voters there refused to fund the games in 1972. That caused a bit of chaos. The runner up Sion, Switzerland didn't want them. Salt Lake City said they take them before they took back the offer and then Lake Placid was offered as the American host alternative. The IOC said no thanks and gave the games to Innsbruck, Austria.

Seems like an opportunity wasted but would have it made a difference in Denver today?

[mhays]

Colorado has a strong brand as the biggest NA ski area, so that might not have been much different. But Denver's not very touristy, so maybe.

That said, "cold and wintry" isn't necessarily a great brand. It'll attract more skiers, and it's probably helping the SLC region quite a bit, but Colorado doesn't need that help. Denver needs fair-weather tourism. (It's sort of a junior Atlanta...big air hub and freeway junction, plenty of conventions, sizable business center with related travel, but not a major destination otherwise.)

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by PhillyRising

I wonder what Denver might have been had they not backed out of hosting the 1976 Winter Olympics. Now Rocky Mountain rival Salt Lake City is going to host a second Olympics this century.

They won the bid and then backed out after voters there refused to fund the games in 1972. That caused a bit of chaos. The runner up Sion, Switzerland didn't want them. Salt Lake City said they take them before they took back the offer and then Lake Placid was offered as the American host alternative. The IOC said no thanks and gave the games to Innsbruck, Austria.

Seems like an opportunity wasted but would have it made a difference in Denver today?

Probably not much of a difference. Winter Games don't get the same type of attention that Summer Games do, and if Denver had hosted it would be on the larger side of hosts. Beijing is the largest city to have hosted a Winter Games by quite some distance. Most of the other Winter Games were hosted in regions with less than 2 million residents, and the host locations were forgotten pretty quickly. To mhays's point, the reason Winter Games locations don't get much attention is probably because most people travel for summer weather instead of winter weather.