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dlish - all I've heard is that Haile isn't going, but that's all from the rumor mill. I haven't seen the Ethopian competitor lists yet, so he might surprise us. I hope so too, considering that he's been my favorite track star for about 15 years.
I hope that I was clear that I think that Dubai isn't capable of hosting the Winter Games. It's possible they could do it in the summer, but I am sure that the Selection Committee wants to see them host some world-class events first. If they can get the 2015 or 2017 athletics World Championship, that would go a long way. Or a World Cup or something that's going to prove that they can handle the bigger stage. I know that there have been a few competitions there, but Dubai needs to demonstrate that they're as good as their reputation.
Interestingly, I think that Dubai's biggest negative is Chicago's biggest positive in getting the Games - the environment. The Selection Committee is very European, and they've bought into global warming bigtime. The Chicago Committee thinks that they can pull this off either as a carbon neutral event or as a carbon negative, where they sequester more carbon than they can use. They're talking about melding together some technologies (like biodeisel backup generators) to pull it off. Without that kind of technology, places like Dubai are going to have a very hard time successfully bidding for future Games.
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