Australia Beats L.A. for Gay Games

A 16-month effort by Los Angeles and Long Beach representatives to co-host the Gay Games in 2002 came to an end Thursday when the games were awarded to Sydney, Australia.

The announcement by directors of the Federation of Gay Games, which has been meeting here all week, left a contingent of Los Angeles and Long Beach delegates clearly disappointed. Representatives of the two cities had put together a proposal that promised to transform the Gay Games into a big-budget extravaganza. They were quietly confident their bid would win.

But in the end the federation chose international exposure over Hollywood hype and the Los Angeles/Long Beach budget of $45.5 million--more than four times larger than the budgets prepared by any of the other cities.

“I think Sydney won because going there will help the federation achieve its desires of expanding and growing globally,” said Norm Reed, co-chairman of the Los Angeles/Long Beach delegation. “Truthfully, I feel disappointed--and relieved--that the decision making process is over.”

The high-stakes bidding reflected how far the games had come since their quiet beginning in San Francisco in 1982, when 1,350 athletes participated in 11 sports on a budget of $125,000.

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In addition to Sydney and Los Angeles/Long Beach, Montreal, Toronto and Dallas bid for the 2002 games.

About 100 members of the bidding contingents gathered in the ballroom of a downtown Denver hotel for the announcement, which was made by Susan Kennedy, co-president of the San Francisco-based federation.

When Sydney was announced, there was some whooping and hollering, but also gasps of surprise. Members of the Los Angeles/Long Beach contingent, standing together in the back of the ballroom, were dressed in business suits, in contrast to the casual dress of others in the room. Anticipating a winning bid, they had donned special lapel pins they had made up for the occasion.

Factors in Sydney’s favor were its strategic location on the Pacific Rim and the experience that will come as host city for the summer Olympic Games in 2000. Sydney had also bid twice before, losing out to New York City, which hosted the games in 1994, and Amsterdam, the host city in 1998.

“By holding Gay Games VI, 2002, in Sydney, we will not only see increased participation from Australians, but also from people throughout the Pacific Rim and Asia,” Kennedy said. “This was the third time Sydney bid to host the games, and it must have been the charm.”

The Long Beach/Los Angeles Games 2002 contingent of 14 people offered far and away the largest, most ambitious budget in the history of the Gay Games. The four other competing cities put up bids ranging from $7 million to $10 million.

Envisioning opening and closing ceremonies at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and the participation of as many as 25,000 athletes, winning the bid would have set the stage for a very large cultural event and economic bonanza for the two cities.

In a video played to the delegates this week, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and Long Beach Mayor Beverly O’Neill both urged the federation to come to Southern California. Also on hand in Denver were representatives of convention and visitors bureaus in the two cities.

Supporters of the proposal talked up Southern California’s successful history in hosting a long list of major sporting events, from past Olympic Games to Super Bowls and World Cup soccer matches. They also pointed out that Los Angeles County has the largest concentration of gay men and lesbians in the world.

“We represent a rather remarkable collaboration of gay and non-gay people,” said delegation co-chair Reed, director of development for Goodwill Industries in Long Beach.

The Sydney bid anticipated a budget of about $10 million. Before learning that her city had won, Gillian Minervini, a spokeswoman for the group from Sydney, said: “I don’t think money is everything.”

“We put on the Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras each year, which is the largest event of its kind in the world,” Minervini said. “So we’re not the poor cousin in this competition, or novices in putting on this kind of event.”