San Diego

A new state license plate, designed as a fund-raising tool for the U.S. Olympic Training Center in San Diego, can now be purchased at any Department of Motor Vehicles location, officials announced Thursday.

The red, white and blue commemorative plates will bear the logo of the training center, which is under construction and scheduled to be completed in 1993.

Officials said 75% of the sales will be applied to repaying a $15-million loan granted by the state to subsidize construction costs of the center, which is the nation’s third Olympic training site but the first year-round facility in a warm-weather location.

“Since the plate is part of a new series, it can be purchased with either personalized lettering or sequential numbering, even if the combination has already been issued on other California vanity plates,” said David Nielsen, executive director of the San Diego National Sports Training Foundation, the nonprofit group developing the center. “But more importantly, these plates offer Californians the opportunity to support our athletes who have Olympic dreams.”

Nielsen noted that 30% of American athletes who participated in the 1988 Olympics were from California, a percentage he thinks may rise with regional access to a “state-of-the-art facility in their own back yards.”

Plans include facilities for track and field, cycling, archery, soccer, field hockey, team handball, volleyball, water polo, synchronized swimming, tennis, canoe/kayak and rowing.