New York struts its stuff

Two events give locals a taste of the Olympics

The New York bid for the 2012 Olympics was on display this past week to casual passerby and accidental tourists alike. It's not as if lunges, thrusts and sharp exchanges are new to commuters at Grand Central Station, but even for grizzled straphangers extracting themselves from the No. 4 train and suburbanites queuing for the 5:47 to Katonah, the sight of a World Cup fencing tournament in the sprawling hall was a now-I've-seen-everything novelty.

Picture this: In a hallway adjacent to the south entrance of the station, 400 spectators sit on either side of a piste (OK, so people are piste in Grand Central all the time, but we digress). Century-old marble walls surround the fencers on three sides, with unsuspecting travelers, a dozen deep, bumping shoulders at the open end of the rectangular makeshift arena. A man flips open his cellphone: "No, really, fencing, like at the Olympics. There's this gold medalist from, like, Hungary and ... Hello? Hello?"

The prelims of the competition were held at Columbia University, a roomier, more standard venue for a sport that has its loyalists but lacks a mass resonance. Over the last few years, all annual World Cup fencing tournaments in the States were held in the Massachusetts hideaway of Peabody, which might as well be Peoria in terms of both Scrabble tabs and global impact. This event may have been an economic and logistical headache for sleepless organizers, but if you're trying to bullhorn and spotlight a sport that is about to produce its strongest U.S. Olympic team in history, if you want to throw some carrots at IOC voters who fear that holding an Olympics in a city that has seen so much may draw more yawn than awe, then you need a fair helping of imagination and caffeine.

"Do you really believe this event can succeed in this setting?" someone asked René Roch, president of the Fédération International d'Escrime, the sport's international governing body. "I didn't think, but is good," said Roch, whose words will filter to his fellow international sports officials and, ultimately, the impressionable IOC electorate. That's the payback for a mad scramble like this, a chance to open some eyes.

It helped that U.S. fencers shone here, too. Sada Jacobson won her first career World Cup event in the women's sabre individual competition and the U.S., featuring Sada and her sister Emily, won the team event. Women's sabre will be featured at the Olympics for the first time next summer in Athens.

Last week the New York Sports Commission also staged a Wild Onion Urban Adventure Race, a fairly accurate description of what New Yorkers have to do to get from Point A to Point B in a timely fashion. While the event did not come under the umbrella of New York's 2012 Olympics organizers, the commission, which works closely with NYC2012, put on an event that required immense planning and operated on a shoestring budget.

Teams of three competitors began the 24-hour survival race at the very same Grand Central Station, running for an hour past Carnegie Hall, the United Nations and Madison Square Garden. Then they jumped in kayaks for five hours of paddling around Ellis Island, Liberty Island and eventually up to Columbia University, navigating the Hudson River from its mouth in the New York harbor north to the top of Manhattan. Next was a cycling/orienteering segment that took the competitors past Yankee Stadium (none of the orienteers were able to locate the Yankees' middle-relief pitching). They then donned in-line skates and headed south to the Empire State Building, where they ascended 86 flights of stairs. Back at street level, they jumped on scooters. After a trip on the Staten Island Ferry and another long bike ride, the teams proceeded to the finish, rappelling down the side of the U.S.S. Intrepid.

Hailing a cab might have been easier, but even had they found an open one, it would not necessarily have been any faster. The winning team of Dave Hume, John Hartley and Tracey Cote won the competition in just under 20 hours, despite losing much of its lead after barely missing a ferry boat. This is New York. One cyclist pulled out after ruining his bike in a pothole.

Dan Doctoroff, president of the NYC2012 team, called the week a great success. Potential bid cities need to show that they can multitask, so with IOC members about to convene in Prague and select site of the 2010 Winter Games, this New York doublehader was a good conversation piece.

Proposed reforms are off the mark

The IOC fired a warning at the USOC Thursday in a cryptic news release, after lawmakers resolved to clean up the latter committee's wastefulness and excesses through sweeping reform. The note read, in part: "The International Olympic Committee (IOC) supports the general thrust of the reform efforts evidenced in the proposals from the Independent Commission on Reform of the USOC. ... After an initial review of the excepts received, however, we are concerned good intentions for reform have led to unintended consequences that must be addressed due to their non-compliance with the Olympic Charter."

The problem is this: IOC regulations, specifically bylaws 31 and 32 in the Olympic Charter, require national governing bodies to represent a majority of their national executive branches within their national Olympic committees. The rationale is that delegates to the IOC need to be well-versed in the diverse interests of their athletes and sport governing bodies in order to properly represent them and enforce IOC mandates and principles back in their home countries. The proposed USOC reforms would cut the board of directors from 123 members to nine, including five independent members and four elected by athletes and NGBs. The three U.S. members of the IOC would serve as advisors to the board.

This is a good move on the part of lawmakers to make the enormous USOC more independent and better accountable to athletes, but it also further confirms to the IOC that the USOC and U.S. lawmakers don't give a hoot about what they enact, propose or espouse.

Sports Illustrated staff writer Brian Cazeneuve covers Olympic sports for the magazine and is a regular contributor to SI.com.

 

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