Dan Knise, president and CEO of the Washington-Baltimore bid said when hearing the news that Washington made the final cut, “we’re clearly happy that we made it to the next phase and that our community has something to celebrate. But we know it’s just another step along the road. There is a lot of work ahead, the competition will be fierce and we will keep working”.
The theme of Washington’s bid is “Connecting Communities, Hosting History”, and bid plans include holding the Opening Ceremonies jointly on Washington’s Mall and at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor.
The bid has strong government backing, with letters of support from the governors of Maryland and Virginia, as well as the mayors of Washington and Baltimore.
Knise and bid chairman John Morton offered assurances that their group would meet the Nov. 30 deadline for producing a financial guarantee on the Games. Knise said the bid group planned to raise another $1 million to $1.5 million to drive the process through at least next year.
Daniel Doctoroff, the president of NYC 2012, the private organization that is running New York’s bid, said, “I was obviously hopeful, but I didn’t want to presume anything. The task force did not explain a lot about why they selected the four of us. They only said that we marked higher than the other four”.
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said, “we’re very, very hopeful that New York will eventually be selected as the city”.
The Houston bid, with a similar financial guarantee as New York, will place most venues within a six to eight mile wide area to aid transportation. The bid got added help when Dallas organizers promised their support.
Houston 2012 President Susan Bandy said, “we’ve always felt we had one of the strongest bids out there. With 75 per cent of our venues constructed and 14 per cent in progress, it makes our financial picture look good”.
San Francisco’s bid puts events in Sacramento and San Jose but emphasizes the city’s waterfront. Organizers see the Golden Gate Bridge as a signature emblem, the way Sydney’s Opera House was used during the 2000 Summer Olympics.
Anne Cribbs, President of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, said, “the San Francisco Bay area already has most of the athletic venues we need to host the Olympic Games”.
San Francisco and Washington must provide the task force with a government financial guarantee by Nov. 30 that would go into effect if either city was selected the 2012 host city and ended up with a deficit. New York has a $250 million guarantee and Houston has one for $100 million.
