John Oliver - Why Norway didn't want the Winter Olympics 2022

[War Horse]

All of this is true. There's much more. An entire lane of every highway in Oslo was to be reserved to the IOC.

[Jack Rabbit]

1. Actually, Norway simply can't afford it

Earlier this year, the government had to allocate emergency funds to save the Chess Olympiad in Tromsø (a community on the coast of the Arctic Ocean) just weeks ahead of the start of the event.

If they can't afford a major chess tournament, it is doubtful they can afford the olympics.

[Warpy]

2. They're going to have to hold them in previous sites

where there is still some infrastructure left over that can be repaired.

Most governments can't afford to meet the hoopla standards the IOC has demanded in the past 20 years. If they can repair instead of building from the ground up, it will be far less costly.

[maddiemom]

4. Chess! My God. Not that the Norweggians are whimpy athletes, but considering

giving highly intellectual competition as an important place as sport? Certainly not the American way! We're number 1!

[Jack Rabbit]

7. The World Champion is a Norwegian

[center][/center]
[center]Magnus Carlsen[/center]
[font size="1"]Photo by Franz Peeters from flikr
(Creative Commons License, Attribution/Share Alike)
[/font]

[tomm2thumbs]

3. Vanilla Coke: 'Like drinking a Glade plug-in'... OMG

their writers just don't quit!

[LongTomH]

5. Fresca: "Like having a grapefruit shit in your mouth!"

[tomm2thumbs]

6. bwahahahaha, yes that floored me

they take no prisoners

[elzenmahn]

8. Take a look at Athens after their recent Summer Games...

...venues going into disrepair due to disuse. They don't play softball in Greece, yet they had to build a stadium for it. Now, the field is covered in weeds.

Not to mention the unused swimming pools and other white elephants.

These games, along with the World Cup, are becoming big, unfunny albatrosses of jokes. Somebody is getting rich, and it ain't the host cities or their citizens.

[elzenmahn]

9. He should probably do a weekly segment...

...on the demands the IOC and FIFA place on their host cities. There'd be laughs aplenty - and probably a whole lot of people getting royally pissed off at the corruption exposed by such a segment.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

10. What about the Garbage Island Bid?