When the Olympics end, fans of sports and culture alike have a feeling of emptiness and sadness. That epidemic has swept Chamblee harder than ever before, and many people  miss the Olympics so much that they are looking for something to fill that hole that has been left in them. That is where the proposition that Chamblee Charter High School should join the bidding to host the 2024 games came from.

While I understand the sentiment behind it, I do not agree with the proposal, and I have a few pieces of evidence to back it up.

First, the Olympics are generally hosted by cities. Rio de Janeiro, Sochi, London, and Vancouver have hosted the past four Olympic Games, and Chamblee, being a high school, just doesn’t fit in with them. It would certainly work better if Rome or Los Angeles (the other two bidders) were to host them, despite the passion the Chamblee community has for the Olympics. We do not have as much space as a full city does, and that leads into my second point.

We just do not have the venues and space available to host the Olympics. First we can look at the upside: we have baseball and softball fields (both of which are set to return to the Olympics by 2024), tennis and basketball courts, a pool, and we can use North Dekalb Stadium to do all the track events and soccer. Unfortunately, past that, we do not have much else. There are a few other venues that are needed such as a beach volleyball stadium and a velodrome. Also, to incorporate an athletes village that has become a status quo in the Olympics, we would have to use every classroom and almost turn the school into a fully functional luxury hotel. This would be very hard, seeing as we have to get school going about a week after the Olympics would end.

Another drawback would be the money. With the already considerable problems with the idea, it would be very difficult to persuade any bank to give us a loan big enough to get the preparation started. It would then be very hard to even make up that money we spent, because ticket sales would be limited due to our limited space and seating at each venue.

Finally, we do not have the name recognition to appeal to fans worldwide. It is more likely for a fan from Budapest, Hungary to tune in to see the sights and culture of a city they are familiar with like Los Angeles or Rome than a 4A high school in Dekalb County, Georgia. While some fans will appreciate the quaintness of such a small area hosting the games, the masses whose opinion leads to the most money, will be more inclined to watch stars like Katie Ledecky swim through an incredibly expensive and well built pool in LA than the pool under our gym.

Overall, as wonderful as it would be to see the gym bustling with thousands of people watching the opening ceremony as a giant image of that piece of clipart we call a logo shines across the floor, the logistics do not make sense to even put ourselves in the bidding for the 2024 Olympics.