Tuesday, May 15 is the day the International Olympic Committee’s evaluation commission report will be made public in Lausanne Switzerland. It’s also the day when Toronto will find out how strong it’s chances are to host the 2008 Summer Games.
Toronto’s bid committee say they need to receive top marks in the report – or very close – to have a shot at winning the 2008 bid.
TO-Bid president and chief executive officer John Bitove told the Toronto Star, “it’s the most important day in our bid’s history. We’re prepared and we expect to be in the top or tied for the top and then we’ll see what the gods think”.
Bitove and his bid group have always said their only chance of upsetting Beijing, the frontrunner, or getting past Paris, is to be seen as having the best technical bid.
Bitove has said several times, “if the vote is based on what bid is best, we’ll win”.
Although officials have said there won’t be any numerical rankings in the report, Bob Richardson, TO-Bid’s chief operating officer, said he understands there will be some pluses and minuses listed, as well as a summary of the findings on each of the five bids.
According to Bitove and TO-Bid officials, a merely good report card would likely be seen as defeat and would do a lot of damage to the bid. But if Toronto does as well as expected, TO-Bid will immediately start “selling the sizzle”, says the Star.
“It’s like any campaign”, said Richardson. “If it’s good news, you’ll want to remind people of it. If it’s not, you go on to other things”.
One issue that should come up is the Toronto budget which evaluation team members said in March would need some revision.
Canadian IOC member Paul Henderson, head of Toronto’s failed 1996 bid, said “I think their (Beijing’s) position is soft. The soft voters have to decide if geopolitics is paramount or if they should come to Toronto, where there are no questions. I think the soft votes from Beijing will go to Toronto. I know Beijing thinks Toronto is their only competition”.
Henderson also feels that many of the votes for Paris will shift to Toronto in later balloting. The reason he says, is that France is eager to stage the Games in 2012 and doesn’t want to square off against a city in the United States, which desperately wants the 2012 Games. The best way to eliminate the U.S. from the 2012 equation, says Henderson, is to have the Summer Games in North America in 2008.
Also, Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy are thinking about bidding for 2012, and they too would rather elbow the U.S. out of the way, says the Star. Voters from those countries also know they’ve got no chance in 2012 if Paris wins in 2008, especially since the Athens 2004 Games and the Turin 2006 Winter Olympics are already in Europe.
