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Panel suggests cuts to contain costs Posted: Tuesday November 26, 2002 3:32 PM
MEXICO CITY (AP) -- Cutbacks in venues, accreditations, technology and other services are necessary to keep the Olympics from reaching breaking point, an IOC panel said Monday. The Olympic Games Study Commission, headed by Canadian member Dick Pound, released a preliminary report suggesting ways of reducing the size and cost of the games. "The games have reached a critical size which may put their future success at risk if the size continues to increase," the report said. "If unchecked, the current growth of the games could discourage many cities from bidding to host the games." On another issue, the International Olympic Committee said legal experts have cleared the way for a vote to go ahead this week on whether to cut baseball, softball and modern pentathlon from the 2008 Beijing Games. Pound's 29-page report was issued on the first day of IOC executive board meetings in Mexico City. It will be submitted to the full general assembly, which meets Thursday and Friday. A final report with detailed recommendations will be presented at the next IOC session in July in Prague, Czech Republic. IOC president Jacques Rogge succeeded Juan Antonio Samaranch last year on a platform of downsizing the games. He asked Pound's commission to come up with proposals for making cuts without reducing the number of sports (28) and athletes (10,500). Any cuts won't occur until after the 2008 Games. Pound said his panel can't say yet how much money could be saved, but that all segments of the Olympic movement -- including the IOC -- will have to make "concessions." The report said the single biggest factor in higher costs is the addition of new sports, disciplines or events. The increase in the number of sports in Sydney from 26 to 28 resulted in the equivalent of an extra 33 days of competition over the same period in Atlanta in 1996. Rogge has decreed the program will not exceed 28 sports and that if any sport is added, one will be taken out. Construction and overlay of venues represents the biggest share of the budget. The report said organizers should opt for more temporary venues, reduce the number of training sites and use combined venues for different sports. The combining of the cross country and biathlon venues at Soldier's Hollow at the Winter Games in Salt Lake City saved US$12 million, the panel said. The report also recommended a later opening of the Olympic Village and other facilities. With the number of accreditations doubling from Los Angeles in 1984 to Sydney in 2000, the panel called for reductions in credentials for media, VIP and other groups. It said the IOC should act as a "referee" to help host cities contain the increasing demands from stakeholders, including sports federations, Olympic officials and the media. Technology costs, including results services and web sites, should be contained or reduced, the report said. But the report rejected suggestions that the 16-day Olympics be expanded to spread out events over a longer period, that the games be shared with neighboring host cities, or that sports from the Summer Games be moved to the Winter Games. The panel said moving sports would serve only as a "budget shifting exercise" and upheld the rule that only snow and ice sports be contested in the Winter Games. Meanwhile, IOC director general Francois Carrard said there were no legal obstacles to holding a vote on excluding baseball, softball and modern pentathlon. A rule in the Olympic Charter suggests that no sports can be added or deleted less than seven years before the games. The Beijing Olympics are six years away. Rogge had said it might be necessary to change the proposal to apply to the 2012 Olympics. But Carrard said the IOC had received a "crystal clear opinion" from the Court of Arbitration for Sport that the rule would not prevent cutting sports for 2008. The proposal, made by the IOC program commission in August, is scheduled for a vote on Friday. A simple majority of the 120-plus members required to cut a sport. Many members have called for the vote to be postponed for further study. But IOC vice president Kevan Gosper said he expects the vote will go ahead this week. "I think he [Rogge] would seek to get a resolution on these sports now, because to have them hanging out any longer would very unwise," he said. "I think the session will say, 'We should resolve this now because it's increasing anxieties and disunity.'" |
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