11-03-2002, 02:01 AM
Quote:USOC tabs N.Y. as 2012 candidate
City beats San Francisco as choice to host Games
New York City delegation members, from left, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Daniel Doctoroff and Jay Kriegel of NYC2012, celebrate after their city was named the U.S. candidate to host the 2012 Olympics.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo., Nov. 2 — New York City turned on its star power, flexed its financial muscle and touted its status as the “world’s second home” to beat out San Francisco on Saturday and become the U.S. candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympics.
THE WINNING ORGANIZERS BROKE into cheers, tears and shouts as the close vote was announced and Frank Sinatra’s “New York, New York” filled the room.
On a weighted scale of voting by the 123 members of the U.S. Olympic Committee board of directors, New York received 132 points out of possible total of 223.
New York organizers, assuring the USOC that they have the resources and security to run the world’s biggest show, laid out an ambitious $5 billion plan that would place virtually all events within city limits.
“We won’t bring the Olympics back to the United States on the cheap,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said, contrasting the city’s plan with a much lower cost bid by San Francisco.
Olympian Bob Beamon, who shattered the long jump record at the 1968 Games, began the New York presentation by calling his native city “the place that has welcomed more people with the dream than anywhere else.”
Comedian Billy Crystal put on a standup routine, saying, “New York - all the foreigners are already there. ... Every athlete can go home with a gold and a fake Rolex.”
Robert De Niro, Jerry Seinfield and Woody Allen appeared on a videotaped plug for the city.
Former Mayor Rudolph Giuliani received a standing ovation from many of the voters and spoke to them about how the city recovered quickly from the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
“We have what it takes,” Giuliani said. “We absolutely love big events and we will not fail you. We will do whatever it takes to bring the Olympics back to the United States.”
The International Olympic Committee will choose the 2012 site in three years, pitting New York against such possible rivals as Paris, Moscow, Toronto, Budapest, Rome, Istanbul, Rio de Janeiro, Madrid or Seville in Spain, and a city in Germany, perhaps Berlin.
“There is no doubt this was a hard-fought contest. Congratulations to New York,” IOC president Jacques Rogge said. “We look forward to receiving their bid to enter into the race to host the 2012 Olympic Games.”
The biggest factor in the voting was deciding which city had the best chance to win over the IOC. The USOC, which relies heavily on a domestic Olympics to boost revenues, wants them back in the country as soon as possible.
“The United States is not the most popular nation on the face of the earth,” San Francisco’s communications director, George Hirthler, told the board. “That’s especially true in the Olympic movement. It will not be easy for the United States to win 2012.”
The U.S. bid could suffer if the IOC chooses Vancouver over Salzburg, Austria, and other contenders for the 2010 Winter Games. The IOC usually prefers to move the Summer and Winter Games around the globe, and it’s doubtful North America would get to host two straight Olympics. However, there were three consecutive Olympics in Europe in the 1990s - Albertville, France, in the winter, Barcelona in the summer of 1992, and Lillehammer, Norway, in the winter of 1994.
New York has never staged the Olympics. A San Francisco Olympics would have been the third Summer Games in California. The games were held in Los Angeles in 1932 and 1984.
One of the board members who voted for New York, Michael Buss, said he was swayed by the city’s confidence.
“I was impressed with their presentation, but more impressed with the comment that they could host any big event,” said Buss, a representative from the American Legion national headquarters.
A California board member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, also said he voted for New York.
The San Francisco bid envisioned mountain biking in Napa vineyards, sailing on San Francisco Bay and other sports spread out within a “Ring of Gold” connecting four sites - San Francisco, Oakland/Berkeley, Stanford and San Jose/Santa Clara.
Bay Area backers pointed out that 80 percent of the sports facilities targeted for the 2012 Olympics, including 85,000-seat Stanford Stadium, already exist. Bid officials proposed capital investment of just $211 million, extremely low by Olympic standards.
The San Francisco contingent included Anne Cribbs, the group’s chief executive, who swam in the 1960 Games, gold medalists Michael Johnson, Kerri Strug and Marion Jones, and Mayor Willie Brown. Comedian Robin Williams appeared in a videotape as a weatherman, touting the Bay Area’s perfect weather compared with the heat and humidity of a New York summer.
New York organizers spoke of the efficiency of their plan, which centers on the “Olympic X,” a design that would align venues into a cross-shaped pattern, with a high-speed ferry running north-south and commuter rail lines running east-west. The average distance would be six miles from the athletes’ village, across the East River from the United Nations, to the venues. No venue would be more than 20 miles away. The triathlon would be held in its entirety in Central Park.
The idea is to get athletes and spectators from place to place - baseball at Yankee Stadium, soccer at the Meadowlands in New Jersey, equestrian on Staten Island, gymnastics at Madison Square Garden - without tying up traffic.
The New York bidders also pointed out that when the games would be staged, in late July and early August, nearly 1 million fewer people use city transit because school is out and many New Yorkers are vacationing.
The New York bid still has to overcome some loud local opposition to a $1 billion proposal to convert a rail yard in Manhattan along the Hudson River into an Olympic stadium and an adjoining 8-acre plaza. The plan, opponents say, would destroy neighborhoods, displace poor and middle-income residents and saddle taxpayers with a huge bill.
Confronted with post-Sept. 11 questions about security, city officials pointed out that any Olympics is a high-security event. A highly concentrated Olympics, they claimed, would help centralize law enforcement.
... while I hope that I will be able to see the Olympics in NYC when i'm 31, more than likely, our popularity amognst the rest of the world will cause us to lose.....
Edited By The Jays on 1036289042
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