In 1980, the US National Men’s Hockey team, as underdogs,
defeated the Soviet Union in the Olympics in an instantly iconic moment. Because
the Winter Olympics were held at Lake Placid that year, the town itself has
seen a tremendous tourism boom from the Olympics and even specifically from
that one hockey game. But Lake Placid is different from most modern Olympic
sites. As put by one of the members of the team himself: “Lake Placid is a
village of around 2,500 people; Main Street, which is still just two lanes, is
nearly 25 miles west of the nearest interstate. The town hosted the Winter
Olympics in both 1932 and ’80, but today, there would never be a Winter Games
in a town so small and so remote. “My favorite thing about Lake Placid is the
people,” O’Callahan said. “Always has been. It’s a love affair, and I want to
come back here until the day I die.”
Since the turn of the century, Winter Olympics have been
hosted in Cities (with a capital C): Salt Lake City; Turin, Italy; Vancouver;
Sochi; and scheduled ahead are Pyeongchang and Beijing. With Pyeongchang
representing an outlier. Each boasts populations exponentially larger than Lake Placid. The Summer
Olympics are no different. Since 2000 the sites have included:
Sydney, Athens, Beijing, London, and in the future will include Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
These are all booming, industrious, populous cities.
So who cares? Well, for players like Jack O’Callahan who
made the above statement, the smallness and remoteness of Lake Placid probably
gave it a uniqueness. In addition to the players, the town itself has been
transformed, and for better or worse it seems that is an unlikely trend to
continue for small towns (although the winter side of Olympics certainly
provides much more potential). Through the Olympics, countless more people have
been exposed to the little known Adirondacks and the quality of the impact is imprecise,
but nonetheless absolutely present.
This however, begs the question, should a small town, or
even any town, want to host the Olympics? There is much debate on that topic,
but for now the answer has been a resounding YES as cities continue to spend
billions of dollars to showcase themselves to the world. It seems likely that
the trend of the “showcase” model that China implemented in 2008 will continue
and countries on the brink of “development” will vie for the spotlight.
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