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Last Monday, Quebec City Mayor Régis Labeaume called Lake Placid City Mayor Craig Randall to inform him that he’s visiting the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne, Switzerland to investigate a future Olympic Winter Games bid.
“The IOC’s agenda 2020 emphasized the re-use of existing facilities, so Mayer Labeaume said he planned to reach out to Lake Placid, Calgary and Vancouver to see if it would be acceptable for Quebec City to investigate the use of venues in those three cities for a 2026 Olympic Winter Games bid,” Randall said in a statement sent to the press.
“I was flattered that Mayer Labeaume reached out to Lake Placid, and I told him to please keep Lake Placid included in his investigation for possible venue use in an Olympic bid,” he said.
Photo: The 1980 Lake Placid Olympics Ski Jumps.
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Why even give this more than a byline under Adirondack news or some similar spot?
Look, the 1980 games were a memorable event that will forever be remembered in American sports history, and rightfully will be an integral part of Lake Placid’s tourist industry for years to come.
But even 36 years ago those much, much smaller(in scale) games strained and overwhelmed the infrastructure of this tiny Adirondack village. And far-fetched schemes like this latest ‘venture’ simply have zero chance of being implemented, much less succeeding; they almost belong in a category of Olympic game fantasies.
This is not a putdown on Lake Placid or the Winter Olympics, though they have become bloated and overdone over the years, even if on a smaller scale than the summer games. It’s simply reality of what this region can legitimately offer in international winter sports competition. Keep the wonderful memories of the ’80 games and nurture them and don’t waste time on fantastical, non-achievalble ideas like these.
I worry that the opulent levels of investment and development now required for a successful Olympic bid would saddle Lake Placid with massive costs and cause it to collapse under its own weight after the Games are over.
If this could be done without the building of vast new housing and facilities, then I’m all in favor.
This plan avoids the issues you describe by sharing across multiple existing venues. The Lake Placid share of the games would, as a result and if successful, a much smaller component of the tota games, more manageable and affordable shared among 4 locations. It’s a great plan to include lake placid in the games that have clearly outgrown our small town if LP tried to go it alone.
Cuomo would insist that snowmobile racing be the new event using Van Ho for the XC and Whiteface for the hill climbs…
An “agenda” that emphasizes the re-use of existing facilities seems to be a bit biased toward places that have already had the Olympics?
We have no real airport and it takes over 4 hours on a good day to drive to Quebec city from LP. This idea is insane.
Who has to drive to Quebec? The athletes would stay in the location where their event would be held. For example, if LP had downhill, skiers would stay in LP. If Quebec had hockey, hockey players would stay in Quebec and so on. This is a new way to put the olympics on affordable and practical.
Spectators would go to the town holding the events that interest them and each town would have a “flame”.
It’s a made for TV event today anyway and for LP, the infrastructure needed for fans athletes and venues to be a quarter of a full Olympic , assuming that it was spread across Quebec City, LP, Vancouver and the 3rd Canadian location.
The “agenda” of the Olympic committee makes sense since it just doesn’t make sense to spend all that money on new brand new facilities every four years for a two week event. I think this is an idea that’s time has come and the only way LP could ever be considered again…. given the concerns you raised regarding trying to host an entire event alone.
W/o a real airport at each host city I think it is still a non-starter. Dignitaries, press, etc. want to get from event to event so “modern” speedy transport is required for a well run Olympics. Remember 1980 – that aspect of the Olympics was a joke, you don’t want to go there these days.
Also, the Olympics is supposed to be a city and a country hosting the world. Not multiple cities and countries.
Interesting idea! With the expense of hosting an Olympics, multiple venues may be the way to go in the future. All the cities mentioned except for Quebec City, are former Olympic venues and have some or all of their existing facilities in service. Quebec City has a brand new building, NHL worthy to add to the facilities. Canada and the U.S. would probably be the best two countries to hold an Olympics together.