I have some news for you all. Women's boxing will be an exibition event in 2008. It will be come a full medal event in 2012.

Now that they added the Women's Steeplechase it won't be long until they add 50 Kilometer Walk and replace the Heptathlon with the Women's Decathlon.

US Olympic Committee is apparently on tour right now, visiting Houston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco in order to start the process for 2016. Apparently, New York is out of this round.

There's a column in a suburban Philly paper with a positive view... and some other tidbits, including (first time I've heard this) Olympic plans to finally visit Africa and South America in the two cycles after 2016. http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16638964&BRD=1675&PAG=461&dept_id=18170&rfi=6

There's also the pessimist's view on things... http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/14540567.htm

If I add likelihoods from those two articles together, I'd be thinking LA or Chicago, with San Francisco (who may have an excuse to finally resolve the 49ers stadium issue) as a close third.

Final 3 for 2014: PyeongChang, Salzburg, Sochi. Funny that I had an inkling on Sochi... but short a climate problem, I've got to think that the Koreans are the favorites when the choice is made a year from today... PROVIDED Kim Jong Il shuts his trap.

First: Irony is moving 300 miles closer to Vancouver BC, the move's timing meaning that I missed out on any chance of getting good Olympic tickets. However, for the love of a soulmate and the Portland Timbers, it's worth it. Damn, it is.

Sochi won out, as you probably know.

However, I think the more interesting news is what London has planned for its Olympic Stadium, based on the German World Cup 2006 experience. I think this concept is something that colleges can use to reduce the cost of new stadia... a possible melding of the tailgate experience with the concession level of the facility.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Stadium_(London)

For that matter, Chicago has come up with an interesting twist on the London concept. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_2016_Olympic_bid