Oh wait, 17 years ago? ZOMG! Time flies... Europeans think a hundred miles is a long way. Americans think a hundred years is a long time.
Well - it is. But not like Madrid is.
And don't they speak Spanish in Rio? Or Portugese? Or Brazilian? Or something?
Seriously - I'm glad Rio won. Rio will turn the Olympics into a carnival, which could be a very fun thing.
Chicago would have been dutifully pomped-up in a ya gotta compete kind of a way, but it would have been about the bennies, not the fun, and that would have been a shame.
José María Aznar, I command you to leave TBG's body!
Seriously, one of the most hair-raising things I heard about Madrid's olympic bid, from the mouth of some PPer or other, was "it's about time we had a Spanish olympics". It gave me nightmares of opening and closing ceremonies full of Jurassic dandruff, Carpetovetonic parodies, fanfare and tambourines, people dancing on a tile, and flamenco. En un viejo país ineficiente, algo así como España entre dos guerras civiles, poseer una casa y poca hacienda y memoria ninguna. -- Gil de Biedma
However things have been complicated this year by whichever cheap airline flies to the north of Spain moving its flight day from Sunday to Tuesday, and so to fit things in Much rail and Flights via Madrid will be part of the trip. Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.
I think this is the way to organize the Olympics. It could become a kind of Eurovision Song Contest. We could have voting scandals on the Jurassic dandruff etc. The Eastern bloc would get up to its usual tricks, and no one would ever vote for America, which would cause high melodrama. Great.
