Personal Call

Big cities get civic boners at the idea of hosting the Olympics. It means you’ve really made it as a city if you get to spend 10 years and billions of dollars to prepare to host events that people care about once every four years, as well as obnoxious tourists, terrorist threats, and Michael Phelps’ entourage. That said, only a handful of cities can really handle the Olympics. But the IOC, bless its heart, at least pretends to take the bids of every candidate city seriously.