A new study from CU Boulder looks into the politics behind hosting the Olympics and why Colorado hasn’t been home to one.
DENVER — While Colorado is home to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Museum, it has never been home to the Olympics. Now, a recent study done by the University of Colorado Boulder has some people convinced that Colorado won’t host the games anytime soon.
Samantha Register, a Ph.D. candidate at CU Boulder, published her findings from a new study into the politics behind hosting the Olympics and why Colorado hasn’t been home to one.
“Denver had actually been awarded the Winter Olympics host bid for 1976,” she explained. “Colorado voters voted not to spend any statewide funding on the Olympics, so therefore the city of Denver and the state of Colorado rescinded their Olympic bid offer and this is the only time that happened in modern Olympic history.”
Register said the reason behind pulling that bid in 1976 may be why Colorado won’t see another anytime soon. Register analyzed data from a survey done by CU Boulder. She said it showed about 60% of Coloradans are interested in hosting an Olympics but if you bring up public spending, that average drops to about 35%.
“I would say if you look 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.”
According to a study done by researchers at Oxford, it took Montreal 30 years to pay off the debt when they went over budget at their Summer Games.
“I think that makes residents of potential host cities a little bit anxious,” Register responded.
But Register said that doesn’t mean Colorado is completely out of international competition. Their recent attempt to be a World Cup host city may be a sign of what’s to come.
“I think that’s something that could maybe happen sometime down the road,” she added. “We’re probably going to see the city of Denver hosting maybe a more smaller scale event before they host the Olympics.”
While the 1972 initiative may have slammed the door on the 1976 Denver Olympics, Denver voters doubled down on that in 2019. Voters passed an initiative that would require a vote before the city spends public money on any future Olympic bids.
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