ENGLAND : Gritty Manchester Makes an Underdog Bid for 2000 Olympic Games

This gritty, nondescript city, which prides itself on being the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, is in the last throes of an expensive battle to capture the summer Olympic Games in the year 2000.

It has pursued its underdog effort against heavyweight competition in typically no-nonsense, northern fashion by offering the International Olympic Committee (IOC) a meat-and-potatoes deal: “We can give the IOC a risk-free Games,” said Mike Dyble, a personable member of the Olympic Games Executive Committee. “We have the government behind us, and we can deliver a totally waterproof package.”

For two years, Dyble and others have been making the case for Manchester against powerful bids by Sydney, Beijing, Berlin and Istanbul.

Manchester thinks it can win, though bookmakers put its odds at 5 to 2.

The IOC’s 91 voting members will decide on the host for the 2000 Olympics at a secret ballot Sept. 23 in Monte Carlo.

What Dyble says Manchester has going for it is a firm financial agreement to produce needed facilities: sporting venues, housing, transportation infrastructure and hotel accommodations.

John Major, the prime minister and a big sports fan, promised to do “whatever is necessary” to host the Games properly, adding: “You should be clear about our objective. We are going for gold.”

Manchester offers an Olympics even more compact than the Games conducted in Barcelona in 1992 with venues of 15 of 25 sports, the Olympic Village, the media center and Olympic hotels within a ring four miles in diameter; 10 venues here would be within walking distance of the Olympic Village and six would be within a 25-minute drive. Only four sites are farther afield: boxing and volleyball, for example, would be staged in Liverpool and yachting in northern Wales.

Transit and railway lines would be extended with stations near the main sites so visitors from the Continent could arrive next to the Olympic center aboard Paris or Brussels trains, using the Channel Tunnel.

Sponsors say there are 200,000 hotel beds in an hour’s radius--most at modest prices suitable for family visitors.

Work is under way on an Olympic velodrome for cycling and on an Olympic arena for gymnastics and basketball; the arena will be used for sporting events, even if the Olympic bid fails.

“We have been able to show IOC representatives evidence of facilities being built,” Dyble said, “not just models.”

Manchester proudly shows off its model for its centerpiece 80,000-seat Olympic stadium.

In the last century, Manchester was one of the great cities of the British Empire. It was badly damaged by German bombers in World War II, and the rebuilding of the city center left unsightly modern buildings.

Today, Manchester’s population is 440,000 while the metropolitan area has an estimated 2.4 million people. Its industries include electronics, computers, light engineering and chemicals.

To many Britons, Manchester is best known as the fictional site of “Coronation Street,” the long-running, top-rated television soap opera, and for its league-leading soccer team, Manchester United.

The city also prides itself on its cultural life with 55,000 students in its universities, a fine symphony, theaters and art galleries.

Manchester bid for the 1996 Olympics but lost to Atlanta. This time it mounted an intense, two-year campaign allocating $9.5 million for the pitch and promising $2 billion from private and public sources to underwrite the Games, if held here.

Dyble points out that after the financially disastrous 1976 Olympics at Montreal, many cities declined to make Olympic bids--until Los Angeles in 1984 showed that a bright, market-oriented effort could make the Games profitable.

A key to success, proponents say, is to plan for uses for Olympic facilities after the Games end; Manchester would hope to turn the Olympic Village into university student quarters and the sports facilities into areawide drawing cards.

Assessing the competition, Dyble sees a cliff-hanger vote in Monte Carlo. Sydney has facilities, but its Southern Hemisphere locale is far for spectators to travel; because of its upside-down weather, it also can’t hold the Games until September, when athletes tend to be tired at the end of their seasons.

Beijing and Berlin, Dyble said, have political clout but could face political problems, with China’s negative record on human rights and the German left’s opposition to the costs of the Games.

And if his city loses? “Manchester is already a winner,” he said. “The facilities we are building will improve the quality of life. And we will have created an awareness of Manchester around the world.”