New York, San Fran make 2012 games cut

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Posted 6:37AM on Wednesday, August 28, 2002

CHICAGO - Imagine watching Olympic fireworks explode over the Golden Gate Bridge or seeing athletes cruise the New York City harbor on their way to the opening ceremony. The U.S. Olympic Committee certainly can. Selecting cities it thinks has the international panache to win the Olympics, a USOC task force Tuesday chose San Francisco and New York as the American finalists for the 2012 Summer Games. Houston and Washington were passed over. ``This was a question of riches, and picking the two cities we felt have the best chance of winning the international competition,'' said Charles H. Moore, a former Olympic gold medalist who heads the bid evaluation task force. ``We are very confident we will bring the games to the United States in 2012.'' The USOC's board of directors will select one city on Nov. 3 to be its 2012 bidder. That candidate will then face as many as a dozen international cities, including possibly Toronto, Rome, Paris, Moscow and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The International Olympic Committee will pick the host in 2005. An American city could be a long shot for a variety of reasons. The United States has held two Olympics in the past six years, and the IOC might want to go somewhere new. Also, Vancouver, British Columbia, is a favorite for the 2010 Winter Games, and the IOC might hesitate to put two games in North America so close to each other. Then there's the recent history of U.S. Olympics. The Atlanta Games had so many problems that former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch called them ``most exceptional,'' rather than the ``best ever'' designation accorded other Olympics. The Salt Lake City bribery scandal - Salt Lake City organizers plied IOC members with more than $1 million in gifts and scholarships - generated congressional hearings. Congress even brought in Samaranch for questioning, angering many IOC members. But none of that deters New York and San Francisco organizers. ``New York offers the Olympic movement the chance to tell a powerful Olympic story,'' said Dan Doctoroff, New York's deputy mayor for economic development and former head of NYC 2012. ``It represents the best of what the Olympics is all about, an international city where various nationalities interact peacefully every day.'' The task force spent hundreds of hours visiting cities and analyzing bids the past 15 months. Members had a scorecard for each of the final four cities, using a scale of 1 to 10 to grade various factors ranging from venues to environmental impact. The rankings were converted into ordinals for Tuesday's meeting, where task force members pitted the cities against each other for the first time. That was too close to determine a winner, so Moore said it ultimately came down to the cities that can be the most successful on the international stage. ``We're dealing with how we think the IOC, all 126 votes, will come out,'' Moore said. New York and San Francisco have worldwide appeal, favorite destinations for American and foreign tourists. Each has a certain magic, too, whether it's the Golden Gate Bridge or the Statue of Liberty. ``In the end, I think the reason we're one of the two is that they looked around at eight million New Yorkers and they realized this is the city that best represents the Olympics,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said. ``And this is the city where we have safety, where we have transportation, where we have facilities, where we have a can-do attitude, where the people would love to have people from around the world come.'' Though New York still needs to build or renovate many venues, Moore said it received high marks for infrastructure. New York is the nation's largest city, and organizers say it is best equipped to handle and move large crowds. All venues would be accessible by rail or water, with organizers saying athletes would never even have to be on a roadway. Despite the Sept. 11 attacks, Moore said the task force had no concerns about New York's security. San Francisco's weather, waterfront and scenic vistas highlight the city's bid. Organizers hope the Golden Gate Bridge will be the Olympics' signature emblem, as Sydney's Opera House was during the 2000 Games. Officials initially spread venues from the Bay area to Sacramento, but now 92 percent of the venues would be within 32 miles of the Olympic Village. ``Going forward, we feel good about our bid,'' said Anne Cribbs, a former Olympian and head of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee. ``And we're excited to make our case to the USOC's board of directors.''