An Olympics bid worth remembering. Why we revisited Cincinnati's quest for the games

We get together every week or so here at The Enquirer for something called “the ideas meeting.”

The idea behind the ideas meeting is that reporters and editors talk about potential stories, anything from trends and interesting people to weird stuff they're hearing out in the community. Last month, while talking about the upcoming Paris games, someone wondered if it was true that Cincinnati once tried to host the Olympic Games.

When I piped up to say, yes, it was, I immediately was reminded of two things: I was the only one in the meeting old enough to remember this. And there are consequences to opening your mouth at meetings.

In this case, one of those consequences is today’s story about Cincinnati’s long-shot bid to host the Olympics. To write it, I talked to the local business leaders and politicians who backed the effort and went through the old bid documents to find out what, exactly, an Olympic Games in Cincinnati might have looked like.

It would have been quite a sight. Picture triathletes swimming in the Ohio River and cyclists racing at Princeton High School.

As I worked on the story, it began to seem relevant as more than just a historical curiosity. Several of the people behind the city's bid said it still matters today, even though it ultimately failed, because it helped Cincinnatians believe they could do bigger things and inspired later projects that transformed the city.

I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoyed diving into the history behind it.

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: An Olympics bid worth remembering. Why we revisited Cincinnati's quest for the games