Extreme AHC: force the 2014 Winter Olympics to Relocate to Vancouver

[Ming777]

Due to the controversies around the upcoming games, I started to think of a challenge:

With a POD no earlier than when Sochi was awarded the games, have various problems, controversies, etc. etc., that against Putin's determination, forces the IOC to move the games elsewhere.

The next part of the challenge is to have this early enough that given sufficient support from citizens and time given for planning, Vancouver accepts re-hosting the Winter Olympics.

 

[Demon-Something]

Impossible under IOC rules. If Sochi was so bad, they'd find somewhere else to host it on short notice or delay it.

Since Vancouver already hosted, the entire country of Canada is not allowed to submit a bid for the next Olympics. There's what's in your way. I guess you'll have to find the right POD at the foundation of the IOC.
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[Emperor Constantine]

Impossible under IOC rules. If Sochi was so bad, they'd find somewhere else to host it on short notice or delay it.

Since Vancouver already hosted, the entire country of Canada is not allowed to submit a bid for the next Olympics. There's what's in your way. I guess you'll have to find the right POD at the foundation of the IOC.
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Who was the runner up for the 2014 Olympics? Could that city be considered as an alternate host site?

 

[TheMann]

Who was the runner up for the 2014 Olympics? Could that city be considered as an alternate host site?

The runner-up was Pyongcheang, South Korea, which is the host for 2018 and would not be anywhere near done in time to host the 2014 edition of the Winter Olympics. In the event that anything disrupted the games to such a degree that they had to be delayed (and boy something BIG would have to happen to pull that off....), they would be held in late 2014 rather than early 2014 as OTL. As far as going for Vancouver hosting twice in succession, I highly doubt it would happen, namely because most recent games host cities still have their facilities, and I would imagine that Turin and Salt Lake City and Nagano would be able to host pretty easily, and the IOC won't want the games in the same place twice in succession.

 

[Alstein]

Only thing I can think of would be a WMD attack two weeks or less before the Olympics, or some massive Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster that impacts the area (if that's possible)- something that would make the area a huge health risk.

 

[zeppelinair]

The runner-up was Pyongcheang, South Korea, which is the host for 2018 and would not be anywhere near done in time to host the 2014 edition of the Winter Olympics. In the event that anything disrupted the games to such a degree that they had to be delayed (and boy something BIG would have to happen to pull that off....), they would be held in late 2014 rather than early 2014 as OTL. As far as going for Vancouver hosting twice in succession, I highly doubt it would happen, namely because most recent games host cities still have their facilities, and I would imagine that Turin and Salt Lake City and Nagano would be able to host pretty easily, and the IOC won't want the games in the same place twice in succession.

welll, we always have the ski slopes in North Korea...

 

[Evan]

Any chance of fulfilling all the OP except the word "rehosting" by having it in Vancouver, Washington State? It'd still be in the Pacific Northwest, and it'd avoid hosting two games in succession. Of course, it still might be unpopular given that Salt Lake City hosted them in 2002.

 

[psychic]

Maybe some kind of major pro-democracy uprising/protest is violently crushed.

 

[Orville_third]

Apart from Terrorists, Georgia could try and try something, though their army would need support from NATO to try and break through. (But that would lead to WWIII- and total suspension.)
Would an earthquake work?

 

[AdmiralMB]

It depends on when the suspension could have been held, Sochi was awarded the games in 2007, so a worse South Ossentian War (Russian atrocities, Russia starting it) that results in most countries breaking off relations and Russia becoming a pariah state. In such a scenario Pyeongchang would be awarded the games being the runner up. There would still be 6 years before the games allowing South Korea to make the necessary infrastructure changes. If Russia normalizes relations sometime after that (say the presidential election in 2012 going to a reformist), they may ask the IOC for the games back, which they could obviously not support in time. Guess Sochi will have to wait till 2022.

Scenario 2 is Putin goes off the deep end sometime after being reelected, and does something that brings worldwide condemnation. Either a resumption of the Georgian conflict, executing Pussy Riot, or a massive crackdown on gays ala Marcus Bachman, is up to you. Doesn't bring about the Pariah state from scenario 1, but Olympic boycotts start to happen; you might even see a record number of athletes decide to compete as individuals under the Olympic flag. Regardless, the IOC determines that because the games have become political fodder for both sides, the Sochi Games will not proceed. Because this would likely occur sometime between late 2012 to late 2013, there would be no time to transfer the games to a city that isn't Vancouver (as that would violate their own rules, and Canada would be one of many countries condemning Russia). Thus the 2014 Winter Games would be canceled, the first game to be canceled in 70 years.

In either scenario, Pyeongchang comes out on top

 

[MUC]

Mqjor political unrest in the Ukraine leads to government change, with the pro-Putin regime losing power. The new anti-Putin government causes a major diplomatic issue with the Russians, when they choose not invite the Russian ambassador to the inauguration ceremony. Russia turns the gas off. Ukrainian protesters storm the Russian embassy, the security guards open fire, in the ensuing chaos 30 Russian nationals die in the hands of the mob. A pro-Putin coup d'etat is staged by the FSB, but miserably fails. When FSB agents are paraded in front of the TV lenses, Russian tanks roll in...
The IOC considers cancelling the Games,,but decides after all to relocate them to Vancouver.

 

[THE OBSERVER]

I'm sure this will mean that in all future Olympic bids, the runner up would be chosen as a back-up host if the primary host country is unable to do so. Therefore, they would have to build the facilities needed for the games, even if they don't host them.

 

[dilbert719]

I'm sure this will mean that in all future Olympic bids, the runner up would be chosen as a back-up host if the primary host country is unable to do so. Therefore, they would have to build the facilities needed for the games, even if they don't host them.

Not plausible. I can't imagine any city in the world being willing to construct the kind of facilities required to stage an Olympic Games just to provide a backup site that may never be used.

More plausible would be for the IOC to change their rules to state that in the event an Olympiad cannot be held as scheduled in the planned host city, previous hosts would be polled to see if they still had the required facilities available to host. In that instance only, a previous host (or hosts, if no one city had everything needed) could be reused. (And how goofy would that be? Hockey/figure skating/speed skating in Vancouver, ski events in Nagano, and so on...)

 

[idonotlikeusernames]

Or you could get enough Russians to really start a revolt/uprising against the regime, civil strife does tend to disrupt things fairly spectacularly, but you'd need one hell of a series of unlikely events to pull that off in such a short timespan. Maybe have some sort of delayed "Russian Spring".