Olympic Panel Favors S.D. for Training Site

San Diego cleared a major hurdle toward becoming the home of a $40-million U.S. Olympic training center Sunday when an Olympic site selection committee recommended that a permanent training complex for American athletes be built here.

Although a specific site has not yet been determined and various financial details remain to be worked out, officials of the U.S. Olympic Committee site selection panel said at a news conference at a Mission Valley hotel that they will recommend that San Diego be awarded the rights to develop the prestigious training center when the USOC Executive Committee meets April 29 in Washington to consider the proposal.

Assuming that the USOC committee approves the plan later this month, the San Diego facility--which would be the largest and first warm-weather training site for U.S. athletes--probably would be ready for use by 1992, Olympic and local officials said.

“We have our track shoes on and we’re ready to go,” said an exuberant San Diego City Councilwoman Gloria McColl, who heads a task force of local civic, business and political leaders that has worked for more than 18 months to lure the Olympic facility to the area.

Toured Seven Sites

The site selection committee’s decision Sunday came one day after the 12-member USOC team toured seven potential sites throughout the county by helicopter and heard a final pitch from the local task force, which hopes to raise about $10 million in private funds within the next three to five years to finance construction of the first phase of the project. San Diego’s exclusive negotiating contract with the USOC over the training complex expires at the end of April.

Richard Harkins, the acting chairman of the USOC site selection committee, said that, beyond San Diego’s obvious climatic advantages, the panel’s members were impressed with the fact that the area is a major transportation hub, the job and educational opportunities available to athletes here and the availability of existing sports facilities that could be used until the training complex is completed.

Any of the seven sites under consideration “would be acceptable, some more than others,” Harkins said.

Local officials declined to identify the potential sites Sunday, saying that it would be premature to do so at this stage--but also because of concern over the possible recurrence of the type of strong community opposition that earlier caused several other locations to be withdrawn from consideration. Previously, however, the officials said that the sites being reviewed include three locations in South Bay, including Otay Lakes; one in North County, but not at Lake Hodges, where residents protested; two in east-central San Diego, and one in East County.

The training site initially would include dormitories, dining and recreational facilities for about 300 athletes in what McColl described as a 50- to 100-acre “campus-like setting.”

“Anything related to the USOC is very prestigious,” McColl said. “It would be good for San Diego to have this in our community. It’s a role model for our youth. . . And it’s certainly good for America. The type of facility that would be constructed here would be state-of-the-art so that our athletes would be able to compete with athletes from all over the world.”

The three existing U.S. Olympic training centers--in Colorado Springs, Colo., Lake Placid, N.Y., and Marquette, Mich.--are in cold-weather locales, Harkins noted, adding that the proposed San Diego facility would enable American athletes, particularly those in sports featured in the Summer Games, to practice their skills year-round.

Struck a Sour Note

One discordant note at Sunday’s announcement came from USOC site selection committee member Curt Prins, the only panel member who voted against recommending San Diego’s proposal to the Executive Committee later this month.

Although Prins praised San Diego’s merits as a potential site for the training center, he complained that the city’s selection “was a done deal before we got here.” Describing the site committee’s vote as “only a rubber stamp,” Prins charged that the panel had not sufficiently reviewed either the seven San Diego sites or explored possibilities in other warm-weather cities.

“San Diego is the only city we visited. We kissed San Diego on the cheek and have proposed to her without talking to any other girls,” Prins said after the news conference. Prins also questioned the qualifications of the local Olympic task force, saying, “I think the people who are in charge of the operation right now aren’t qualified to put on an Olympic mud-wrestling training camp.”

Task force members, however, dismissed Prins’ criticisms by noting that he had not even bothered to attend Saturday’s tour of the seven sites. Prins said that he skipped the tour because he “felt it was a waste of my time.”

If, as expected, the USOC Executive Committee accepts the site panel’s recommendation, the San Diego task force plans to hire an executive director and a professional fund-raiser, with the latter intended to help raise at least $10 million through corporate sponsorships and joint city-USOC fund-raising ventures. There are no current plans for City of San Diego or other public funds to help underwrite the training center, McColl emphasized.

In an effort to expedite the project, McColl explained, San Diego officials plan to simultaneously proceed with community reviews and environmental impact statements on several potential sites, so that if problems arise in regard to one location, other alternatives are immediately available.

While such reviews typically are lengthy ones that often are slowed by community protests, McColl said that she does not anticipate serious opposition to the proposed training center, which could be available to local athletes when not in use by Olympic athletes.

Although a specific timetable for construction of the training center has not been determined, McColl added that the local officials--as well as the USOC--”would be disappointed if it were not in place” by 1992. Emphasizing that point, USOC official Harkins said that the Olympic Committee “would be happy to start using the facility tomorrow.”

Until the training complex is completed, Olympic athletes--some of whom already train here primarily because of the climate--could use San Diego’s existing facilities for sports ranging from swimming and bicycling to archery, shooting and track and field events, Harkins said.

“Starting with the climate, we already have most of what you need for a training center,” McColl said. “The dream is to pull all these things together in one place.”