|
|
 |
 |   |
|
INTERNATIONAL NEWS EVENTS Fantasy Central Inside Game Video Plus Statitudes Your Turn Message Boards Email Newsletters Golf Guide Cities 
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|  |
Toronto 2008 Olympic bid by athletes, for athletes
TORONTO (AP) -- John Bitove looks out his 31st-floor office window and sees the possibilities on the Lake Ontario waterfront -- tens of thousands of people walking past colorful pavilions to sports stadiums. At one end, now an industrial wasteland, would stand the Olympic Stadium, a swimming and diving hall, the hockey stadium, sailing marina, rowing and canoeing course, and the Olympic village on a point jutting into the lake. Ten minutes down the lakefront, in the city's exhibition center, would be several more arenas and exhibition halls for cycling, weightlifting, gymnastics, cycling and other sports. The Skydome stadium and Air Canada Center in the middle would hold Olympic baseball, softball and basketball if the International Olympic Committee awards Toronto the 2008 Summer Games when it votes July 13 in Moscow. Of the 28 sports, 25 would hold all or most of their events within about 3 1/2 miles of the waterfront, an unprecedented intimacy for any Olympics, said Bitove, the president and chief executive of the Toronto bid. Add to that the athlete-friendly planning by Toronto bidders, and the strong government and community support -- with 80,000 volunteers already signed up for two weeks of work seven years down the road -- and Bitove believes Toronto has the strongest proposal among the five finalists. Beijing, however, is the favorite to win the games, with Paris and Toronto having an outside chance. Istanbul, Turkey, and Osaka, Japan, have all but been eliminated already. Bitove contends no other bid city "can give the IOC the certainty that Toronto can." But to win the games, the city would have to pull off an upset and overcome a PR gaffe. Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman was forced to apologize last month after joking he was reluctant to attend an Olympic meeting in Africa because, "I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me." The city has had some other problems, too. Bid officials had to ask the government for another $4 million to help cover the costs of trying to win the games. Toronto's financing of the games, particularly the proposed renovation of parts of the waterfront, already prompted questions from the IOC evaluating committee that otherwise praised the bid after visiting in March. The total estimated budget for the 2008 Games in Toronto is $1.87 billion. Whether Lastman's remarks or the money issue will have any effect on IOC voters was unclear. None of it will matter if Beijing, a narrow loser to Sydney for the 2000 Games, has what is thought to be broad support from the IOC. Bitove rejected any talk that the race was over, saying the IOC rarely chooses a winner on the first ballot and noting the front-runner has lost in five out of the last six elections. Toronto's strategy, emphasizing the view and needs of athletes by including them in the planning, is appreciated by IOC members and will win strong support, Bitove said. "This is going to be a close contest right down to the wire," he said. Another highlight of the Toronto bid is that it already has 70 percent of the facilities build. Curtis Hibbert, a former Commonwealth gymnastics champion and Olympian now on the bid committee, said there were no "white elephants" -- new buildings that would go unused after the games. An Olympic cycling stadium would become an international training facility for several sports, he said, and the Olympic Village and Media Village would be used for housing. Prime Minister Jean Chretien, Ontario provincial Premier Mike Harris and Lastman all will travel with Bitove to Moscow for the vote. Bitove will make sure the IOC knows about those 80,000 volunteers, one of the strengths of the highly successful Sydney Games last year. "If the IOC likes Sydney," he said, "then they'll love Toronto."
| |||||||||||||||||||
