The success of the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games has “boosted the chances” of the United States winning the 2012 Games and wiped out the taste of the “bad Games” in Atlanta in 1996, said IOC President Jacques Rogge. Four cities are bidding to become the U.S. candidate for the 2012 Games. They are New York, Washington, San Francisco and Houston.
But Toronto Star reporter Jim Byers looks at North American bids a little differently. He reported that “things don’t look quite as good from here if you’re Jack Poole or any one else on Vancouver’s 2010 bid team”.
Byers said things could change between now and IOC voting day in July, 2003, “but right now it’s awfully hard to see the Russians and their friends – and they have a lot of them in the IOC – volunteering to spend another 17 days in North American any time soon”.
Byers writes that three months ago Rogge was getting lip from American publications who were calling his group too Eurocentric. Now he’s told the system favours North Americans.
