Salzburg, considered a strong contender to host the 2010 Winter Olympic Games, left the 2010 race in the first round of voting to the surprise of many.
According to Reuters, Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel said, “we are deeply disappointed. There’s no point blaming the referee…it was a sporting competition and we lost in the first round and that hurts”.
“We knew we weren’t the favourite and that Vancouver was a nose ahead of us, but we expected an open, exciting race to the end and that’s why this early exit hurts”.
He added that he was surprised and disappointed that in the first round they didn’t get more than 16 votes. “This has to be analyzed”.
Although IOC President Jacques Rogge has denied that continental rotation exists, the IOC tends to rotate both the summer and winter Games across the continents to broaden the appeal of the Games. One senior IOC member told Reuters, “I think this maybe shows that some members were of the opinion that they couldn’t vote for another Games in Europe right now. It wasn’t their bid that lost it for them, it was Athens (summer 2004) and Turin (winter 2006) already having the Games that worked against Salzburg”, he added.
According to Reuters Salzburg may also have been snubbed by European IOC members who wanted a non-European city in 2010 to ensure the 2012 Summer Games would then be staged on their continent.
Salzburg Mayor Heinz Schaden said: “naturally the disappointment is huge. I did not expect this but we must try and look at it from the positive side. We were taken seriously until the end and therefore it’s all the more surprising”.
The mayor said it was too early to even contemplate whether Salzburg would bid for the 2014 Winter Games.
Robert Kaspar, secretary general of Salzburg 2010, described as visibly shaken said, “we have no idea where we failed – we had a very good presentation this morning”.
