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Florida 2012 – Day Two

If the USOC chooses Florida to be the U.S. candidate to bid on the 2012 Summer Games, Florida would pay for every competing Olympian to bring two family members to the Games. Included in the offer is a week’s food and lodging and two tickets to each event in which the athlete participates.

Ed Turanchik, president of Florida 2012, called the offer “unprecedented” and said it impressed the USOC members. He said, “it sends a very strong message to the Olympic family. The cost, estimated to be at least $7 million, would come from a projected $670 million surplus that Florida 2012 predicts the Games would generate. “There’s no use having a profit if you don’t direct it toward winning”.

Saturday the USOC team toured the potential site for an Athletes’ Village and examined two proposed sports venues, the Orange County Convention Center and Disney’s Wide World of Sports. “We wanted to show that Orlando is all about its ability to entertain visitors. We wanted to show all of the venues that are already in place, the facilities that we have to accommodate large numbers of visitors”, said Ed Timberlake, Florida 2012 vice chairman.

Meanwhile other members of the USOC committee were touring venues in Lakeland, Plant City and the Alafia River State Recreation Area in Lithia.

USOC officials also toured Florida 2012’s offices in Orlando and Tampa before hearing presentations on proposed government support, financial planning and international strategies.

During Saturday morning’s site visits, the USOC’s bus caravan drove past many hotels in the south Orlando and Lake Buena Vista area. Lodging officials said there are 125,000 rooms currently available between Tampa and Orlando with the possibility of another 100,000 opening over the next 11 years.

Jeff Brinda, chairman of the Central Florida Hotel and Lodging Association, said “we certainly see it as one of our selling points”.

One hotel, the Caribe Royale, is being proposed as housing for Olympic participants, and would serve as an adjunct to the primary Athletes’ Village in Tampa. The hotel, located about 1.50 miles away from Walt Disney World and six miles from the convention centre, is planning to expand to 2,800 suites from its current 1,336.

The convention centre is 1.1 million square feet, which will be doubled when an expansion is finished in 2003, and would serve as the site for badminton, fencing, judo, table tennis, tae kwon do and weightlifting.

USOC officials also toured the Peabody Hotel, across from the convention centre.

At Disney’s Wide World of Sports, USOC officials toured the 9,000-seat baseball stadium and the 5,500-seat basketball field house.

Turanchik said, “we delivered every message that we wanted to deliver. We presented Florida and the bid in as perfect a light as we possibly could, and now it’s up to them”.

The evaluation team was to hold a press conference Sunday morning before leaving the state.

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