[Retric]

You are not going to get nearly as much news coverage if you separate smaller events internationally. However, I think you could easily justify using multiple cities in the same country to host the Olympics. The real problem is not generic infrastructure it's a massive oversupply of somewhat wacky infrastructure in one location that's the issue. You can easily host the gymnastics completion or track and field in a football stadium but most cities don't have redundant football stadiums.

[harshreality]

cities.

Why would international scattering influence spectators? Flying between countries is only a little bit more annoying than flying between cities that are far apart in places like the USA.

Whether scattered in one country or internationally, I think most spectators would pick their favorite event and only go there, catching the other events on the internet (if they were scattered, entry into one olympic venue would probably include live streaming access to other events). Even if scheduling would permit flying between locations, I don't think most people would.

Scattering would also influence the social atmosphere in any one location. The olympics are almost more important as a social congregation than as a series of sporting events. Scattering them at all would disrupt that.

[Retric]

To use a US example. DC, Baltimore, and Richmond are all within 150 mile driving distance. However, I was more thinking of using 2 city's close to each other.

So, for example São Paulo is the largest city in Brazil. However, Campinas is less than 60 miles away and it's #10. Together they avoid a lot of wasted construction and end up much better off in the long term.

[harshreality]

While that makes a lot of sense, it would also limit the number of cities that could host the games, since they'd have to be part of a city cluster collectively willing to host all the events. Maybe that wouldn't be a bad thing.

I don't know how many spectators would want to take bus or taxi rides between cities even if they were 1-2 hours apart. That increases logistics problems for everyone, travel plans, complexity of hotel bookings, etc.

I think my last concern might be the most significant. Scattering the olympics between two or three cities means the energy of the olympics wouldn't be the same: multiple olympic villages, and less mingling of athletes and spectators there for different sports.

Costs would be spread out between cities, but so would advantages, and the cost/benefit ratio might actually increase. It would be an interesting thing to study.

[ecspike]

If the last Olympics in the Americas are precedent, they are willing. Some events in Atlanta and Vancouver were an hour away.

Baltimore and DC tried to do a joint bid. Between the two of them they have very fast and efficient public transportation links (DC to Balto. in about 45 mins) but the IOC said no. It was really sad because between the two of us, many of the venues for a summer games already exist. Maybe that was the bigger problem, the IOC and FIFA want brand new venues and don't care if the cities will use them afterwards.

There is only one official Olympic Village and several unofficial ones. Because the alpine events were 60 miles away from downtown Vancouver, those athletes stayed in accommodations on the mountain.