I know this is going to be a touchy touchy subject to bring up (so please no attacks on either city, merely plausible and economical suggestions), but i feel with recent revelations it is highly relevant, shall list them briefly below.

1) Durban has developed a precinctwide sports development plan for the upliftment and further development of the Kings Park sports precinct, enabling it to contain almost 42 olympic sports in a small area.

2) The recent announcement of interest in a new indoor sports arena and high performance centre adjacent to Kings park rugby stadium.

3) The development of the Senz Stadium, with athletics track and seating expansion up to 100 000 and the subsequent lack of athletics track or capacity to ever include an athletics track in Cape Town's Greenpoint stadium.


My main point is, while cape town is more internationally reknowned and has already attempted to stake its claim at olympic glory, South Africa can ill afford or sustain two major sporting precincts to an olympic scale. If Durban already will have these facilities in place, in an olympic village type of planning zone, does it or will it ever make economic or any sense for cape town to be put forward as south africa's olympic candidate, if all of these facilities have to be built from scratch leading to massive duplication?


PLEASE. No insults. Merely justified arguments.

good points.

Ya, so we will wait to see when we make the bid, & for which year.

oh god lets get 2010 under our belts first guys!!! As long as the olympics are not in joburg I dont mind either durbs or cape town as both are great cities!

Modified cross-post from Greenpoint stadium thread as my arguments apply here too.

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As you may be aware, Chicago and LA are bidding against each other to be America's host city for the 2016 bid. While LA has experience on its side (it's hosted 2 Olympic Games) its biggest drawback is how spaced out its facilities are from each other (similar to CT's). Lack of railway connections means road transportation will be linking Olympic venues; ie. traffic, traffic, traffic. Chicago's biggest strength is how relatively compact its facilities are (similar to Durbs). If LA wins, it won't be on the strength of its spaced out facilities but because of its big brand name and its previous experience. Conventional wisdom suggests the selection committee would favour a compact bid over a spaced out one. I have seen no evidence that the IOC won't approve 20+ facilities into one area, nor of a city losing out because of this factor (please enlighten me with examples if you can, or its policy on this issue). In the case of Durbs, it's not as if everything is in one building. It's over a 5 km strip. That's compact and super convenient but not cramped.

I was in CT for the whole of last week but the traffic really got to me (all in non-peak times). This will be a major drawback in its aspirations for an Olympic bid, especially as most of the current CT sporting venues are not linked to each other by rail.

First things first, though. CT needs a world class track facility with seating for at least 80,000 people. The new stadium is an excellent opportunity for CT to obtain this facility but shortsightedness on the part of officials means the govt will have to spend big bucks to rebuild the new stadium for any future Olympic bid (by widening and/or lengthening it) or build a new stadium from scratch. SA can ill afford to do either in the years ahead.

i honestly dont see a second 80 000 seater being built just cos the designers on this one went oops and didnt design it to fit a stadium. and the reasoning they have been using is laughable (it wld cost too much), when durban is building one for R1billion less and it has a track.

Cape town is the "glamour city" in terms of having a previous olympic bid and more fame than durban, but does that make it a good venue for sport? for an olympics? for surely above all else the facilities and olympic area are most important...fame can develop in the build up (durban is sure to gain alot more in the years ahead as the city is doing very well to position itself in the international mind (clipper yacht event, A1, world cup draw host, the world cup itself, SA tennis open, FINA swimming world cup and possible world championships, WRC...)

Mo, as you may be aware, Chicago and LA are bidding against each other to be America's host city for the 2016 bid. While LA has experience on its side (it's hosted 2 Olympic Games) its biggest drawback is how spaced out its facilities are from each other (similar to CT's). Lack of railway connections means ground transportation will be linking Olympic venues; ie. traffic, traffic, traffic. Chicago's biggest strength is how relatively compact its facilities are (similar to Durbs). If LA wins, it won't be on the strength of its spaced out facilities but because of its big brand name and its previous experience. Conventional wisdom suggests the selection committee would favour a compact bid over a spaced out one. I have seen no evidence that the IOC won't approve 20+ facilities into one area, nor of a city losing out because of this factor (please enlighten me with examples if you can, or its policy on this issue). In the case of Durbs, it's not as if everything is in one building. It's over a 5 km strip. That's compact and super convenient but not cramped.

I was in CT for the whole of last week but the traffic really got to me (all in non-peak times). This will be a major drawback in its aspirations for an Olympic bid, especially as most of the venues you list are not linked to each other by rail. First things first, though. CT needs a world class track facility with seating for at least 80,000 people. The new stadium is an excellent opportunity for CT to obtain this facility but shortsightedness on the part of officials means the govt will have to spend big bucks to rebuild the new stadium for any future Olympic bid (by widening and/or lengthening it) or build a new stadium from scratch. SA can ill afford to do either in the years ahead.

I'm aware of CT's strength's and weaknesses.
If LA wins, it will be because of the security it can offer the IOC of existing venues and a highly succesful games. Brand name will have very little to do with it and the situation is certainly not a good example of a CT vs durban bid.
The brand of Chicago and what it can offer the IOC is probably stronger than that of LA. The LA games are still "fresh" in the minds of many IOC members, simply because they really saved the Olympic movement, and hosted a financially successful games, something which will probably never be repeated again.

As much as the gvt would need to play a role in an Olympic bid, the previous bid did have a large private component as I said before, and I won't be surprised if this repeats itself.

While the clustering of facilities is great, clustering too many facilities into one strip causes logistical and security nightmares. What other rail connections exist in durban. So if 15 venues are located at kings park, where will the other venues be located? What economic development do they offer to durban as a whole?(rich and poor). My argument at the end of the day is not about the weakness of the durban plan but the existence of excellent sports facilities in CT, whether or not that includes an athletics stadium.

As for transport, of course CT has traffic, its a growing city, but IMO still has the best public transport in South Africa. A planned airport - city rail connection, supplemented by the BRT system as you would have seen which is already under construction. That IMO is just the start, to a transport plan which would make sense and would actually work.Sure the kings park complex is connected to the CBD by rail, but what kind of CBD are we really looking at in Durban?? How long before we see a significant change?

I've looked very closely at a CT olympic venue plan over the last 2 years, and compared it to many previous bids, and along with the city centre, greenpoint and a possible olympic park, it offers an excellent venue plan on par with sydney and perhaps even more compact.(remembering that the sydney olypic park was some 45 miles from the city centre.)

If cape town does bid and does create an olympic park, the park will be within 10 mins of the CBD, and be well connected to other venues. The lack of an olympic stadium/aquatic centre did not hurt the London olympic bid. Its venues too arent exactly located in one 5km strip. Have you tried getting from wembley stadium to wimbledon? Its biggest weakness(transport) became its biggest strength, going up against a city like Paris, who were technically the best candidate.

An olympic bid is a combination of many things roman, but at the end of the day its what can inspire those 105 members of the IOC the most to vote for your city. The cultural strength, dramatic beauty, good existing sports facilities, good basic transport infrastructure, excellent "green" energy plans and goals for 2020 and the brand of cape town combined offers a product and complete package to the IOC which durban will struggle to find even if it is South Africa's second attempt. If a durban olympic bid rests purely on its venues, well then I refer you to the list of previous and current olympic hosts.

You obviously can't equate LA and Chicago with Durbs and CT. My reference point, Mo, was in relation to your statement about the disadvantage the compactness of Durban's infrastructure would pose to the city. I believe otherwise and used Chicago as an example.

The other thing Mo, is your repeated negative reference to Durban's city centre. I'm not sure what parts you visit when you're here, but aside from a 200 m strip of Point Rd and the Warwick Triangle (both of which are getting massive upgrades) it is clean and undoubtedly the most vibrant city centre of all SA's cities. The area around city hall, in particular, is frequented by locals and foreign visitors every day (there are walk-about tours every day FYI) and every foreign visitor I have ever taken there has loved it. Most overseas visitors like CT's centre but regard it as being Eurocentric and 'sanitised' of an African feel. Durban's CBD is frequented by **300,000** people a day. That's probably more than CT's and JHB's combined. It is buzzy, vibrant and truely multicultural. If you want to experience a true unsanitised African city, come to Durban. You make it sound like a slum when that's definitely not the case. Durban is also widely regarded as having the best road infrastructure in Africa (which, of course, has been necessiated by harbour activities).

Anyway, the headline story in today's front page of the Sunday Times (Extra supplement) is "Durban shifts into top gear". Subheading: "A1GP is part of city's strategy to become a centre of international sport. I don't have the web link to full article but will just quickly quote Mike Sutcliffe:


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"We have already been South Africa's major events destination both in terms of convention sector and sporting events. This is the place where the largest number of events are held."

"We want to scale ourselves up to an international level with other events, like we have with the Comrades Marathon and Dusi Canoe, which are unique to us at an international level."

He said the new soccer stadium was being designed not only for 2010. "We are designing it for beyond 2010, as South Africa may bid to host the Olympics or Commonwealth Games. We would be the only world class stadium in the country to have an athletics track. We have said, spend a little extra money now and not have to build a new stadium if you get the Olympics."

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How wise is that last statement? This is my main gripe with the Greenpoint Stadium. It's very short-sighted. Unless the government plans on spending billions more on a new world-class 80,000 seater CT stadium, CT has virtually kissed gooodbye its chances of hosting a Commonwealth or Olympics Games. The main track is where most Olympic events are held. You can have as many other venues as possible (spaced out or not; and most of the venues you list, Mo, are *not* world-class); it's still useless without a major althletics stadium. That's the single factor that wrecked New York's 2012 Olympics aspirations and more recently, San Francisco's. No world-class athletics stadium = no Olympic Games.

Personally, I will thrilled if **ANY** South African city wins the chance to host the Commonwealth or Olympic Games. However, right now my money is on Durban, unless CT secures private funding to build a new stadium (which is unlikely because of sustainability issues) or government is prepared to foot the bill (also unlikely). In the event of either materialising, I will be surprised but will fully support CT if it represent's the continent's best shot at winning either Games.

The Olympics head has consistently said that if a South American or African city puts together a competent bid for 2016 and / or 2020, it will stand an excellent chance of hosting the Games, even if it going up big gun cities in the U.S and Europe. Asia has had its chance. Provided Rio gets its house in order for 2016, Africa will stand an EXCELLENT chance of hosting the 2020 Games. At this point, Durban is being wise to build its credentials in hosting major events and position itself as a major sporting destination. It will stand the city in good stead for a future Commonwealth or Olympics bid. That is unarguable.

Chicago's compactness and comprehensive public transit system give it a strong logistical edge over Los Angeles. Whether that's enough to overcome LA's more glamourous image remains to be seen. Both cities need to construct (or renovate substantially) large stadiums if they are to host the Olympics, so I think both cities are even when it comes to existing sports infrastructure.

San Francisco and New York's bids were hurt by lack of a large athletics stadium, but that mis-states those city's problems considerably.

First, New York. Simply put, the state government of New York had no desire to fund the necessary stadium. Although the city mayor supported the bid, public support inside New York City was uncertain, and in the rest of New York state, public support was minimal at best. In the end, there was inadequate support to justify government money to fund Olympic stadium construction.

Now for San Francisco. No American city can justify construction of a large permanent stadium suitable for athletics without also ensuring that the stadium will be used by an American football or baseball team after the Olympics. There is a tremendous fear of building a White Elephant.

Since 1997, the city of San Francisco and the local American football franchise, the 49ers, were engaged in on-again, off-again negotiations over a new city-financed American football stadium to replace current, aging stadium (Candlestick Park, now known as Monster Park due to a corporate sponsorship.). In 1997, a citywide referendum on using public funds for the new stadium was approved narrowly, with just 50.2% of the vote, amid allegations of voter fraud (A local newspaper investigation showed that 744 dead people voted in that election! And the stadium measure passed by a margin of just 1,000 votes.). Although a slim majority of city residents (living and dead!) approved spending $100M on a stadium, the plan never got off the drawing board, and stadium negotiations fell dormant.

Negotiations bore more fruit in recent years, but were by no means a done deal. The current mayor of San Francisco, however, felt confident enough to announce that the new stadium would form the centrepiece of the city's Olympic bid. It would be a privately-financed 68,000 seat stadium, with an additional 20,000 temporary seats, plus a temporary athletics track.

Problem was, the mayor still lacked a commitment from the 49ers to use the stadium. In fact, the 49ers announced that they were also negotiating with officials in Santa Clara (80kms from the propose San Francisco stadium) to build a new stadium in that county. The San Francisco city government, however, apparently thought that the 49ers were just bluffing. Wrong.

The 49ers disliked the San Francisco stadium design, particularly the attached parking garages, disliked the city's ultra-secretive negotiating style, and felt that the city government took the franchise for granted. In November 2006, the 49ers felt they couldn't trust the city, so they broke off negotiations, and announced that they were implementing their backup plan - moving to a new stadium in Santa Clara. So, with the 49ers no longer interested in the stadium, the city had no viable economic plan for an Olympic stadium, and had to drop their bid. Although San Francisco still hope to reach an agreement with the 49ers that will keep the team within the city boundaries, that does not seem likely.

Here's the full article:

Durbs shifts into top gear

TASCHICA PILLAY
18 February 2007

A1GP is part of city’s strategy to become a centre of international sport

The staging of next weekend’s A1GP in the streets of Durban is part of a larger strategy to turn the city into an international sporting mecca.

The R100-million event, expected to attract 140 000 spectators, begins on Friday with the feature event on Sunday.

Municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe said the city had drawn up a “2010 and Beyond” strategy.

“We have already been South Africa’s major events destination both in terms of the convention sector and sporting events. This is the place where the largest number of events are held,” he said.

“We want to scale ourselves up to an international level with other events, like we already have with the Comrades Marathon and Dusi Canoe, which are unique to us at an international level.

“We will begin by growing other areas like beach soccer, where we are hoping to host in 2008/09 the world beach soccer finals.”

Sutcliffe said motorsport was an important sector.

“Clearly Formula One at this stage is far too expensive, but A1 is just slightly levelled down from Formula 1 and is just as exciting and fun.

“The concept of A1GP is even more interesting, because it’s pitting driver against driver and country against country, because they are all driving the same vehicle.”

He said the new soccer stadium was being designed not only for 2010.

“We are designing it for beyond 2010, as South Africa may bid to host the Olympics or Commonwealth Games. We would be the only world-class stadium in the country to have an athletics track. We have said, spend a little extra money now and not have to build a new stadium if you get the Olympics.”

He said that in terms of the A1, the city was building on what it achieved last year.

“Being our first year last year, we received the award as best host. This year we want to take it one step further by making it much more comfortable for fans with better access, food and drink outlets closer, more seating and parking.

“Internationally, we are expecting an influx of people either directly linked to the race or motorsport fans. Each year we want to grow that component. Once it starts establishing itself, people will say the last week in February we shall be in Durban for the A1GP.”

Meanwhile, overseas visitors and teams have started arriving in the city for next weekend’s event.

Like the famous Monaco GP street circuit, Durban’s temporary 3.2km circuit is along the beachfront.

Adrian Zaugg, who gave South Africa its first A1GP victory in the Netherlands last October, will be at the wheel of Vulindlela for the Durban event.

Dana Cooper, CEO of A1 Team South Africa, described the Durban leg of the series as the most exciting on the A1GP circuit.

“There is a full programme for the day, with exciting support races and a dazzling opening ceremony,” said Cooper.

She said among the changes this year were designated seating, depending on the price of the tickets, improved access control and more concession areas.

She said platinum tickets, costing R850 for the main race day, had sold the best so far.

Some of the dignitaries expected to attend the event are the chairman of A1GP, Tony Teixeira, former F1 champion Alan Jones, businessman Tokyo Sexwale, KwaZulu-Natal Premier S’bu Ndebele and several cabinet ministers.

Ndebele will host a dinner on Friday, followed by a dinner at Suncoast Casino and Entertainment Complex on Saturday hosted by Team South Africa chairman Sexwale.

Kaliq Essop, general manager of Suncoast Hotel and Towers, which adjoins the track, said it was fully booked for the race weekend.

Just to add to jeromes comments:

How can Cape Town hope to build ANOTHER stadium IN ADDITION to the Greebpoint stadium for a future bid? The greenpoint stadium already doesnt have any permanent teams based there after 2010 so how could a third major stadium (50 000 Newlands, 68 000 Greenpoint and 80 000+ for olympics) even be plausible??

You stated yourself mo that durban is crazy to have both kings park and king senz...CT would have 3 massive stadia if they got a games?

Surely the IOC would not be happy having greenpoint sitting as a waste? And i seriously doubt the government, city or residents would ever dream of backing another new stadium after greenpoint.

It is for that reason why the scenario that is playing out in cape town is saddening for any CT bid prospect. To build a massive new stadium that was going to be multipurpose (with retractable roof, athletics track and able to host a variety of facilities), to now building a stadium that is over budget and lacking these facilities seems an utter farce and complete lack of foresight, planning and accountability from the city and designers.

While CT's was always trumpeted as South Africa's only olympic games host, i somehow dont see that being nearly a forgone conclusion anymore 10 years down the line, and from the statements by Mayor Obed Mlaba, Mike Sutcliffe and the KZN sports department...the durban city authority is aiming to really go for it.

And hey, competition is good for the country. It will force the CT council to be accountable for their actions and realise not everything can just happen...just like the durban council had to realise harshly in the 1990s