Final Word from Thursday, June 12, 2008
Our reading of the Working Group Report for the 2016 Olympic Games is that Prague has little hope of ever being a true contender for hosting the Summer Olympics. Tomáš Petera of Praha olympijská was technically right when he told Czech Radio that the report doesn't identify any insurmountable barriers, but Prague scored at or below the benchmark in nearly all the 11 rating categories. In one of the two most-important categories, accommodations, Prague failed to provide a figure for the number of 3-5 star hotel rooms (not beds). The IOC's benchmark is 40,000, but Prague only came close to this (31,897) by including 1-2 star rooms as well. To put things in perspective, Madrid has a population three times bigger than Prague's but only 40,472 rooms in the 3-5 star class. The Working Group Report tends to confirm the belief that Prague is simply too small to host the Olympics.[Czech Republic International Olympic Committee Games]
Glossary of difficult words
underdog - a competitor thought to have little chance of winning a fight or contest;
Working Group Report - the Working Group found that Prague and Baku did not have the requisite level of capability to host the 2016 Games and that Chicago, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Doha (with limitations) and Madrid did have the potential to host the 2016 Games;
insurmountable - too great to overcome;
benchmark - the minimum desirable grade (as determined by the IOC); Prague's overall rating was in the range of 4.0-5.0, well below the benchmark;
IOC - International Olympic Committee.