After getting a letter asking about Minneapolis' interest in making a bid to host the 2024 Summer Olympic games, Mayor R.T. Rybak has respectfully declined.
While such a giant undertaking would involve the entire metro area and require massive resources from around the state, St. Paul apparently wasn't involved in the decision to opt out.
Mayor Chris Coleman's office said it appears that a letter from the U.S. Olympic Committee went only to Minneapolis.
And in response to U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun, Rybak said that the state and metro area "have the people, the talent, the community spirit and the overall destination appeal to host a successful Olympic and Paralympic Games."
But Rybak's reply, posted on Scribd by MPR, says that bidding on the games would entail "an extraordinary commitment of time and resources," and "that it makes more sense for Minneapolis to pursue large-scale, national-caliber events like the Super Bowl, the Democratic National Convention and others than to proceed with an Olympic bid at this time."
When St. Paul hosted the Republican National Convention in 2008 — with official events at the Xcel Energy Center, but most attendees staying at hotels in Minneapolis and the suburbs — there was also buzz about the area trying to get the Olympics.
Olympic coverage veteran Jay Weiner, who then wrote for MinnPost, roundly pooh-poohed the idea.
He noted the state's failed attempt in 1988, at the urging of Gov. Rudy Perpich, to get the 1996 games, losing the U.S. bid to Atlanta.
Writing at the time from Beijing, Weiner noted:
Besides scale, there's one other thing: political will. Building one baseball stadium took a decade. Even if it made financial sense, where does Minnesota have the leadership to envision a viable Olympic plan?
These Games are too big for our nice little town. Our mass transit is a set of model trains, compared with the subway system here. Would we be willing to pay to upgrade?
For the Beijing Games, there are 37 competition venues and 46 training sites. Could we provide those compactly? We have many small colleges and some have terrific facilities. But all would have to be retrofitted for Olympic acceptance.
The IOC requires 40,000 hotel rooms within 30 miles of the core of the Olympics. Chicago has 90,000 rooms in that zone. Twin Cities has 35,000 in the seven-county area. You need to go to St. Cloud or Rochester to get our region up to 40,000 rooms.