The 2004 Olympics Host Pick at Hand

In what shapes up as the most wide-open, unpredictable and contentious Olympic selection in years, five cities are entering the final days of the high-stakes race for the 2004 Summer Games.

The contest has been tainted in recent weeks by mudslinging among the three European candidates--particularly between Mediterranean rivals Rome and Athens--and a series of bomb attacks and terrorist threats against Stockholm’s bid.

While those three cities try to limit any damage from last-minute debate, Cape Town and Buenos Aires hope that one of them gets to take the Olympics where no games have gone before.

Unlike recent Olympic votes, there are no overwhelming favorites and no obvious also-rans this time.

“This is my fourth vote and I always have at this point known who the front-runner is,” said Carol Anne Lethren, a Canadian member of the International Olympic Committee. “This time I don’t have a clue. My educated guess is that one-third of my colleagues have not made up their minds yet.”

The decision will come Friday, when 109 members of the IOC vote by secret ballot at the Beaulieu Palace in Lausanne.

Several rounds of voting are expected before a winner emerges. The candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated after each round until one achieves a majority.

“Depending on how the eliminations go, you could construct a scenario with any one of the five winning,” IOC executive board member Dick Pound said.

Athens (1896), Stockholm (1912) and Rome (1960) have staged the Olympics before. Cape Town and Buenos Aires hope to bring the games to Africa and South America for the first time.

There is strong sentiment for going back to Europe after 12 years away from the continent. After Barcelona in 1992, the Summer Games have gone to Atlanta (1996) and Sydney (2000). The last Winter Games in Europe were in Lillehammer, Norway, in 1994.

“On one hand, there is a desire to go back to Europe, the cradle of Olympism,” said Jacques Rogge, a Belgian IOC member who heads the European association of national Olympic committees. “On the other, there is a desire to expand to continents that never had the games.”

Rome long has been considered the front-runner and remains the London bookmakers’ favorite, at odds of 4-6 with Ladbrokes and 4-5 with William Hill.

But the Italian capital’s stock seems to have slipped in recent weeks as a result of comments by Primo Nebiolo, the powerful leader of the International Amateur Athletic Federation and honorary president of the Rome bid committee.

Nebiolo offended many by his attacks on Greece during track and field’s world championships in Athens in early August.

The event, seen as a key test of Athens’ ability to host the games, was generally well organized and successful. But Nebiolo criticized the local organizers and suggested Greece was too unstable to host the Olympics.

“Nebiolo has done everything to try to make Greece look bad,” said Greek IOC member Lambis Nicolaou. “But all of this may boomerang on him.”

Yet Rome’s chances remain strong. The bid is solid, the local and national governments have given their full backing, and the country has a good reputation for organizing big events such as the 1960 Olympics, the 1987 track and field world championships and soccer’s 1990 World Cup.

The Italian city also may be hard to beat when IOC members consider where they and their spouses would prefer to spend three weeks. With that in mind, Rome is offering to turn the Via Veneto area--symbol of the “Dolce Vita” of the 1960s--into a private playground of hotels, shops and restaurants for Olympic officials.

Athens always has been considered Rome’s main rival. Many IOC members feel they owe a debt to Athens, which was bypassed in favor of Atlanta for the 1996 Centennial Games.

The Greeks turned off IOC voters when they virtually demanded those games by virtue of having staged the first modern games in 1896. This time, with a bid led by Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki, a former national legislator and wife of a millionaire industrialist, Athens has mounted a much more effective campaign.

Stockholm is considered a possible compromise European candidate. The bid has enlisted the endorsement of dozens of high-profile athletes, including Carl Lewis, Sergei Bubka and Mark Spitz.

But Sweden’s reputation as a safe country has been shattered in recent weeks by 10 arson fires, most against sports facilities, and bomb attacks at the 1912 Olympic Stadium in Stockholm and the New Ullevi Stadium in Goteborg.

Responsibility for the attacks was claimed by a group calling itself “We Who Built Sweden.” Saying the Olympics would be a waste of taxpayers’ money, the group threatened to turn Stockholm into a “war zone” and “make the 1972 Olympic tragedy in Munich look like a kindergarten tiff.”

IOC members generally have been reluctant to go where they don’t feel secure. But IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch and other members have suggested the violence could actually rally votes in Stockholm’s favor.

Ultimately, Stockholm’s bid could founder on the lack of widespread public support. A recent poll found only 49% of Swedes in favor of playing host to the games.

Cape Town officials repeatedly point out that Africa is the only continent represented by the five Olympic rings that never has hosted the games.

Cape Town’s biggest asset is South African President Nelson Mandela, who will be in Lausanne to push the bid. If anyone can influence a few last-minute votes, it is Mandela.

But Mandela will no longer be in power in 2004, raising uncertainties about the future. That could turn away some IOC voters, as could South Africa’s high rate of violent crime.

Buenos Aires, making its fifth bid, is probably the long shot of the five but has impressed many visiting IOC members and can count on Latin American support.

The final cities are finalists from a record 11 that entered the bidding for 2004. An IOC selection panel cut Istanbul, Turkey; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Lilles, France; Seville, Spain; San Juan, Puerto Rico; and St. Petersburg, Russia, in a preliminary vote last March.

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2004 Race Odyssey

British bookmakers’ odds on the five cities bidding for the 2004 Olympics (bookmakers stopped taking bets in early August).

LADBROKES

Rome: 4-6

Athens: 11-4

Cape Town: 6-2

Stockholm: 6-1

Buenos Aires: 16-1

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WILLIAM HILL

Rome: 4-5

Athens: 11-8

Cape Town: 7-2

Stockholm: 9-1

Buenos Aires: 80-1