The Tokyo Olympics recently ended this August. It had been over 50 years since the games came to Japan. However, all of this would’ve never happened without a bidding process. This allows countries to decide whether they want the Olympics to be hosted in their country, not just to promote their own country but to show off their sporting skills.
During the process, many countries battle it out to serenade
the International Olympics Committee to host the games there. Many locations
that won the bid to host the games includes Athens, Paris, London, Sydney,
Beijing, Rio and recently Tokyo.
And then, there are the bids that are both hysterical and
make no sense. This includes the many failed bids from the USA throughout the
1950s, Tashkent in Uzbekistan out of all places, Alexandria in Egypt and
Bangkok in Thailand!
And then, there was the bids from Great Britain. London was
the most successful with all four bids being successful, only for the 1944
games were cancelled because of World War 2. Birmingham bid for the 1992
Olympics but failed because of the lack of Interest from Thatcher & her
Government. Manchester, on the other hand, would bid twice for the 1996 &
2000 games and would fail, despite a massive amount of confidence and
patriotism.
So how did Manchester lose
out on hosting the Olympics and what happened next?
In 1990, the City of Manchester was at a cultural high. Both
Manchester United and Manchester City were in the highest league of English
football, fashion was starting to get baggy and the music scene known as
‘Madchester’ was in full swing with the likes of New Order, Stone Roses and
Happy entertaining the youth of the city in a time where Thatcher’s final year
was delusional to many.
With culture booming, the Manchester City Council thought it
was the right time to host the Olympics, not just for the city but for the
whole of Great Britain. When it was time to vote, they were up against locations
such as Athens, Toronto, Atlanta, Belgrade and Melbourne. Tough competition.
Round one began. One location with the few points would be
eliminated, and that location would be Belgrade with a measly 7 points.
Manchester were 2nd to last. It would end in tears in round two as
Manchester bowed out with 5 points. They were behind Toronto with 17 points.
Athens were winning the first three rounds; however,
controversy would damage their bid as their poor preparations would lose them a
chance to host the modern Olympic games a hundred years after they originally
brought it back. Overall, Atlanta won the bid. Many speculated whether
Atlanta’s bid was to do with a marketing ploy for Coca-Cola as their HQ was
located there.
After that, Manchester did not take the loss well and went
ahead in 1993 to bid for the next Olympics in 2000. This time, the Government
along with John Major were interested with the £1.5 billion bid for the
Olympics. Amusingly, their promotional video to promote their bid was heavily
criticised as they used footage of Buckingham Place and Tower Bridge instead of
tourism locations in Manchester.
Manchester in culture had changed during this time. Factory
records, home of New Order & Happy Mondays was bankrupt in 1992, Take That
were inescapable, the Trafford Shopping Centre was in the works and Manchester
United had won the first Premier League title since it’s formation.
Venues for the Manchester Olympics included the Manchester
Velodrome (Cycling), Manchester Arena (Gymnastics), Old Trafford Cricket Ground
(Baseball), a new swimming centre in Wigan (Swimming and diving) and many local
football stadiums (football). Overall, 30 venues were chosen to host many
sports for the games. The main stadium was meant to be built in the east of
Manchester and would’ve hosted many games with many venues close to it. The
Olympic village was originally set to be built near the canal from abandoned
warehouses.
The President of the IOC, Juan Antonio Samaranch described
Manchester’s chances as “Very, very high”. Many people dismissed other bids
from Beijing, Berlin and Istanbul with both Manchester and Sydney being the
favourites to host the Olympics. Despite the hiccup that was the promotional
video, they hired many athletes and celebrities such as Mr. Motivational (yes,
that’s his stage name) to help bring the games to Manchester. Things were
looking very interesting.
September 1993, the IOC meeting took place. It was time to
confirm the location of the 2000 Olympic games. Round one began. Istanbul were
eliminated with 7 points. Second round and Berlin lost with 9 points. It was
now between Manchester, Beijing and Sydney. Things were looking very
interesting. But then round three ended. Manchester were eliminated.
And now it was between Beijing and Sydney, with Beijing
winning the first three rounds. Many bidders believed it was overdue for China
to host the Olympics and a new Millennium would be the right time for the
country to reintroduce itself after the Tiananmen Square protests. For
Australia, it was destiny for the Olympics to come back after Melbourne hosted
the games in 1956.
Round four began, bidders chose between the two locations.
Surely, Beijing were going to finally bring the Olympics to Asia. The President
of the IOC thanked the locations for bidding; awkwardly, thousands of people
Beijing mistook this as a victory and wrongly celebrated winning the bid. The
envelope was open and Sydney had won the bid! Australia had just beaten China
to hosting the Olympics in the new Millennium and celebrations in Beijing were
muted. Many politicians breathed a sigh of relief as China’s stance on human
rights and sociological policies were questioned by many.
After Manchester failed to win their bid to host the
Olympics, speculations of corruption arose as some believed the cost of the bid
was too high. They would finally bid one last time, this being the Commonwealth
Games in 2002. Success finally came as Manchester won the bid and was the first
time Great Britain hosted a major multi-sport event since the London Olympics
in 1948.
The stadium, originally designed for the 2000 games, was
redesigned and was finally built just in time for the games. This stadium would
later be taken over by Manchester City FC a year later and was important to the
club’s fortunes as they were taken over by a consortium in Abu Dhabi.
Great Britain finally would win the right to host the
Olympics in 2012 as London was chosen in 2005. London’s Olympic Games was met
with the most critical acclaim and saw a resurgence of the British Olympic
team. If it wasn’t for the early bids of the Olympics and the 2002 Commonwealth
games, Paris would’ve hosted the games instead of 2024. Beijing, on the other
hand, finally hosted the Olympics in 2008 and even the Winter Olympics in 2022!
In the future, the Commonwealth Games are arriving in Birmingham
in 2022, the Paris Olympics will occur in three years, Los Angeles will host
the games in 2028 and Brisbane recently were the only bidders. But will
Manchester finally have a chance to host the Summer Olympics? Well…we’ll just
have to wait and see.
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