It was a sweet gesture, especially coming from a city that is expected to compete for the 2012 Olympics, too, but one never meant to be taken entirely seriously. The campaign to host an Olympics is a long drawn-out affair, and there are no shortcuts, no way around the International Olympic Committee honchos who make the final selection.
But on Friday New York passed its first Olympic hurdle, as the U.S. Olympic Committee pared down its list of candidates for 2012 from eight to four at a meeting in Salt Lake City. New York, along with its sister city in tragedy, Washington, made the cut, as did Houston and pre-attack favorite San Francisco. The United States will select its “official” bid city next year, but the IOC won’t make its final choice until 2005. That New York made the list of American finalists wasn’t a surprise. The surprise had come far earlier, as the city’s impressive campaign convinced even some skeptics that a New York Olympics wasn’t a preposterous notion. Many had assumed that New York was simply too expensive, congested and politically fractious to mount a serious bid. But the campaign committee, NYC2012, produced a strong, feasible regional plan. And just this week state legislators rallied to the cause by approving a $250 million guarantee against any potential losses in a New York Olympics. Given that, the USOC, for all its occasional political clumsiness, would have had to be completely tone-deaf not to pass New York onto the next round.
It also wasn’t a surprise that the American cuts included most of the cities that the rest of the world might view as “Southern”: Tampa, Dallas, Cincinnati and Los Angeles. (And Houston is regarded as the longshot of the four American survivors.) “Southern” cities are paying a penalty for the bad taste left by Atlanta’s 1996 Olympics. The Atlanta Olympics is widely regarded now as an ugly exercise in crass commercialism. In addition, major transportation and computer systems planned for the ‘96 Olympics proved inadequate. The Games were also marred by a bombing in the Olympic plaza that killed a Georgia woman. In the Olympic family, the very word “Atlanta” is synonymous with wretched taste and poor performance (as in, “We won’t pull an Atlanta”). One Olympic insider told me recently: “The IOC would rather hold an Olympics in Afghanistan than put the Games back in the American South.”
NYC2012 officials have said repeatedly that they are not looking for sympathy. Which, having been afforded some in this early stage (though it was likely to have made the cut anyway), is a shrewd strategy. When the USOC makes its final choice in November 2002, it can’t afford to let commiseration be an overriding consideration. However much sympathy there is in the world for New York right now, the terrorist attack won’t be foremost in the minds of IOC delegates four years hence. Indeed, if it is, it won’t be a good sign for any American contender. Security is a paramount Olympic concern and has been ever since the attack by Palestinian terrorists on the Israeli team during the 1972 Munich Olympics. If the United States remains a country on high alert in 2005, it won’t bode well for hosting an Olympics anywhere here. (This week for the first time, one prominent IOC delegate suggested it might even be necessary to cancel the Salt Lake Olympics scheduled for February. His view was quickly repudiated by IOC leaders, and he later apologized.)
Regardless, the American contender will still face an uphill struggle to win another Olympics. Possible contenders include a host of glamour capitals, including Rome, Paris, London, Madrid, Berlin, Budapest, Istanbul, Moscow, Tel Aviv, Rio de Janeiro and Toronto. There is widespread feeling among IOC delegates that, with four Olympics in 22 years (Lake Placid, Los Angeles, Atlanta and now Salt Lake), America has already had more than its share. Moreover, Vancouver is considered a favorite for the 2010 Winter Games; if it wins, North America would be unlikely to land back-to-back Olympics. The United States also faces strong anti-American sentiment as a result not only of the Atlanta performance, but also the Salt Lake bribery scandal that tarnished the IOC and the Olympic movement.
Still, every victory for New York right now is a great victory. Charles Moore, the chairman of the USOC’s bid-evaluation task force, termed the selection process an “inspiring journey.” If inspiration is what the USOC is still looking for this time next year, then New York should be a shoo-in to stand as America’s candidate for 2012.
