Samaranch Gives Boost to U.S. Bid Cities for 2012 Games

In comments sure to lift hopes in Los Angeles and seven other U.S. cities seeking to play host to the 2012 Summer Olympics, International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch said Wednesday that any U.S. city bidding for the Games must be considered a front-runner.

Speaking at a news conference marking the end of a two-day meeting of the IOC’s ruling Executive Board--a session filled with developments bearing on the Games in 2004, 2008 and 2012--Samaranch said the United States “is very important in the Olympic movement, in all the aspects.”

He continued: “We have the tradition that every time we organize the Games--they organize the Games--in the United States, the Games are a huge success.

“That means that their candidates, I think, they will be always the front-runners.”

Samaranch’s unscripted remarks were particularly notable because they serve as a potent reminder of the financial and symbolic importance of the United States at a time when anti-U.S. sentiment, sparked by the Salt Lake City corruption scandal, remains fierce within the IOC.

Nine of the IOC’s 11 major sponsors are American. NBC is the Olympic movement’s single-largest financial underwriter. But anti-U.S. sentiment is so formidable that the IOC is planning no formal Executive Board meetings in the United States next year, even though the Salt Lake Games begin in 14 months, in February, 2002.

In comparison, the Executive Board journeyed to Sydney last February, seven months ahead of the Summer Games.

The corruption scandal, which exploded two years ago this week, added to anti-American feelings within the IOC stemming from the 1996 Atlanta Summer Games, which were marked by a commercial excess that IOC members still bemoan in vivid terms in private moments.

The IOC has been so wary of the United States that the policy-making Executive Board has not formally held a meeting in the country since the end of the Atlanta Games. The meeting in Sydney last February was originally scheduled for Salt Lake but moved on short notice.

Smaller IOC delegations--such as a committee charged with oversight of the Salt Lake Games--have, however, visited the U.S. regularly. The IOC’s all-delegates general session is scheduled for 2002 in Salt Lake.

Samaranch, meantime, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives in December 1999--but that episode, in which the IOC president was unceremoniously grilled by members of Congress, regularly prompts expressions of anger from many within the IOC. They believe that Samaranch, IOC president since 1980, was not treated with the respect he was due.

Mitt Romney, head of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, said a few weeks ago that he believes the Games will not be back in the United States after 2002 for at least 20 years--not, he said, because of the scandal but because cities such as Havana, Istanbul and Kuala Lumpur now have the financial and technical ability to put on the Games and want to showcase their countries and cultures.

The 2004 Games are scheduled to be held in Athens. The IOC will pick a 2008 site next July.

The 2006 Winter Games will be held in Turin, Italy. The 2010 Winter Games site will be chosen in 2003.

History has shown that since 1960, when television began to assume its central role in the Olympic movement, the Games have come back to North America nearly every eight years.

Beijing and Paris are widely considered the leading candidates for 2008. If either wins, the IOC will be overdue to return to North America in 2010 or 2012. There are no U.S. candidates for either the 2008 or 2010 Games.

The X-factor in a 2012 U.S. candidacy, however, is Canada--which offers the same prime-time TV time zones the networks find so favorable. Toronto is also bidding for the 2008 Games. Vancouver (with nearby Whistler Mountain) is reportedly considering a 2010 Winter Games bid.

Each of the five 2008 bid cities--Beijing, Paris, Toronto, Istanbul and Osaka, Japan--made a 10-minute presentation Wednesday to the Executive Board.

Asked if Toronto would be in the running in 2012, John Bitove Jr., once an owner of the NBA’s Toronto Raptors and now head of the Toronto bid, said, “We are committed to hosting the Olympic Games. Right now we are focused on hosting them in 2008.”

But, he added a moment later: “One way or another, we want to be an Olympic city.”

The 2012 bid process technically begins Friday in the United States. That’s the deadline for the eight U.S. cities to deliver to the United States Olympic Committee a package outlining in several hundred pages the strengths and weaknesses of their bids.

The cities other than Los Angeles are Cincinnati, Dallas, Houston, New York, San Francisco-San Jose, Tampa and Washington-Baltimore.

The USOC will select a U.S. candidate in 2002. The IOC will pick the 2012 winner in 2005. Rio de Janeiro and at least a dozen other cities from around the world have already indicated interest.

Samaranch, always careful in public not to appear to favor any city in the bidding process, said Wednesday he had no preference for the 2012 Games. He also stated the obvious about the long lead-up to the vote and the many variables, including the election of a new IOC president next summer, that could determine the outcome: “2005, that’s a long time,” he said.

The L.A. 2012 bid features a lineup of venues already so complete that it could easily be ready in 2004, when the Games are due to be held in Athens.

Preparations in Greece have been marked by revolving-door leadership, by angry public spats between Olympic organizers and the Greek government and by delays in scores of needed construction projects.

Samaranch reiterated his support of the Greeks on Wednesday, telling reporters that Athens “is again on the track.”

Several members of the Executive Board, however, are known to be frustrated with what they perceive as a lack of progress in Athens.

The halting progress in Athens contributed in part to a decision Wednesday by the Executive Board to shut the door for 2004 on the addition of any new sports to the Games--thereby ruling out ballroom dancing, water skiing and other events.

IOC Sports Director Gilbert Felli, explaining the move, said it was based on the need to control the number of athletes, to hold down costs--and to recognize the organizational troubles that to date have plagued Athens.

“We have difficulties there,” he said.