The USOC evaluation committee has been in Houston the past couple of days focussing on Houston’s venues and transportation as they assess the city’s chances of becoming the U.S. candidate for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.
Susan Bandy, head of Houston’s 2012 bid, said, “there will be a lot of questions about finance, since the budget portion of our plan is 60 pages long. We’ll get a lot of questions about our international strategies and about the Paralympics”.
The Houston Chronicle reports that the committee’s bus, which had a motorcycle escort but did not proceed through red lights, made it from downtown to the University of Houston, which would be the site of the Olympic Village, in three minutes and 50 seconds. Travel time from the university to Reliant Park was 14 minutes and 30 seconds.
The group had a 45-minute tour of the air-conditioned 72 degrees Reliant Center (while it was 93 degrees outdoors). Committee members lingered over a new model of the Reliant Park complex, which will be known as Olympic Park should Houston be awarded the Games. The model included the existing convention buildings, the Astrodome and Reliant Stadium plus a proposed $50 million swimming and diving centre, which would seat 15,000 for swimming and 7,500 for diving, that would be built to the southeast of the Astrodome at a cost of about $50 million.
Bandy said, “I think the day went well. Other than the fact that we couldn’t get people to stop looking at the hand-helds (Concierge 2012 PDA’s) so we could keep on schedule. It was wonderful. We showed them what we wanted to show them and made the points we wanted to make, and I believe we’re ready now for their questions”.
USOC Committee spokesman Jeff Howard said, “I think that everyone was impressed with the facilities they saw today. Houston has so many things to offer that are not bid-dependent, and they’re pleased that the city is doing so many things, whether the Olympics come here or not. They were very impressed with that fact”.
Saturday the visit includes a question and answer period.
