Denver Rejects The Olympics (1972)

This Day in Esoteric Political History

Jody Avirgan & Radiotopia

History

4.6 • 982 Ratings

🗓️ 15 November 2022

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

*** The Radiotopia fundraiser is happening right now! Support this show by becoming a member today: https://on.prx.org/3Ehr3B6 ***

It’s November 15th. This day in 1972, citizens of Colorado rejected a proposal that would have funded the 1976 Olympics Games. Denver had been awarded the games two years earlier, but now local residents and officials were starting to question the economic and environmental cost.

Jody, Niki, and Kellie discuss why Denver said no, and how people are starting to ask more questions about these large sporting events —including this year’s World Cup in Qatar.

And don’t forget about Oprahdemics, hosted by Kellie, out now from Radiotopia.

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Our team: Jacob Feldman, Researcher/Producer; Brittani Brown, Producer; Khawla Nakua, Transcripts; music by Teen Daze and Blue Dot Sessions; Audrey Mardavich is our Executive Producer at Radiotopia

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and welcome to this day in esoteric political history from Radiotopia.
0:07.0	My name is Jody Avergan.
0:10.0	This day, November 1972, Denver says no thank you.
0:17.0	This was the moment when the US City told the International Olympic Committee, the IOC,
0:22.0	that it was no longer interested in hosting the 1976 Olympic Games, in this case the Winter Olympics.
0:28.9	The Games had been awarded to Denver two years earlier, but then local citizens and officials
0:33.5	started to have second thoughts and right at the moment when they
0:36.8	would start to really prepare for the 76 games, they pulled out.
0:40.5	And I will say sitting here in 2022, the 50th anniversary of this story by the
0:44.7	way. There is a bit of an evolution in how we have thought about the Olympics and I
0:49.2	think a lot of places and a lot of citizens are starting to ask questions
0:52.2	about the financial and
0:53.3	environmental cost of hosting the Olympics but for this to happen in the early
0:57.2	70s is quite remarkable you know they had a sense here what is the cost so this is
1:02.4	our chance to talk about the political and other
1:04.6	costs of hosting these major events, which of course ties nicely into the
1:08.7	start of the World Cup, which is happening in Qatar very soon and there are lots of economic and
1:14.8	environmental and moral questions around those games. So we will mostly focus on
1:19.8	the 72 games but here to talk about all of it are, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and
1:24.8	Kelly Carter Jackson of Wesley.
1:26.8	Hello, there.
1:27.8	Hello, Jody.
	...

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