Will Colorado ever host the Olympics? Probably not – here’s why
Jul 24, 2024, 2:03 PM | Updated: Jul 26, 2024, 2:53 pm
Will Colorado ever host the Olympics? Probably not – here’s why.
Colorado is where the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum is located, but it has never hosted the Olympics.
A recent study conducted by the University of Colorado Boulder suggests that Colorado may not be hosting the games anytime soon. Samantha Register, a Ph.D. candidate at CU Boulder, shared her findings on why Colorado has never been home to the Olympics.
In 1976, Denver was actually awarded the Winter Olympics host bid, but Colorado voters decided against using statewide funding for the event. As a result, Denver and Colorado withdrew their Olympic bid offer, making it a unique occurrence in modern Olympic history.
The reason for withdrawing the bid in 1976 may be why Colorado won’t see another one anytime soon, according to Register. She analyzed data from a survey conducted by CU Boulder, which revealed that about 60% of Coloradans are interested in hosting an Olympics. However, when public spending is brought up, that interest drops to about 35%.
“Looking at past Olympic host bids, it’s kind of a mixed bag in terms of whether or not it’s considered successful,” she said.
“For example, the 1984 LA Olympics were considered broadly successful. Then you have other Olympics, like Montreal Olympics, was considered not to be successful.”
A study by researchers at Oxford found that it took Montreal 30 years to pay off the debt when they went over budget at their Summer Games.
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