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John Crumpacker, Chronicle Staff Writer
April 10, 2002—A group that is working to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to San Francisco has put more of the Bay Area into its Bay Area bid.
Acting on suggestions from the U.S. Olympic Committee to concentrate as many events as possible locally, the group has revised its plan and moved archery, cycling and baseball from Sacramento to sites on the Peninsula.
The Sacramento area's Lake Natoma would still host rowing, canoe and kayak events, and some preliminary soccer rounds would be played in Southern California.
But under the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee's new plan, a full 92 percent of the competition sites would be within 32 miles of the proposed Olympic Village at Moffett Field near Mountain View.
Organizers hope that the adjustments, which put more than half the proposed venues within 18 miles of the Olympic Village, will make the bid more enticing to the national committee.
"These adjustments were done to respond to the USOC's ideas of a more compact venue plan . . . and make more use of facilities at Stanford and Cal," said Anne Cribbs, BASOC's executive director.
"We've maintained our original commitment to the athletes to provide the best possible competitive conditions," she said.
San Francisco is one of four U.S. cities bidding for the 2012 Summer Olympics; the others are New York, Washington and Houston.
The USOC will name the American bid city on Nov. 2 of this year. Whatever city is selected will then enter the international phase of the competition against anticipated competitors such as Paris, London and Moscow.
The International Olympic Committee will name the host city for 2012 in 2005, giving the winner seven years to prepare for an event that brings together more than 10,000 athletes from nearly 200 countries for 17 days of competition.
"I'm being quietly confident," said Cribbs, a gold medal swimmer at the 1960 Rome Olympics.
BASOC's revised venue plan is contained in a 300-page addendum to the group's original 700-page bid, which also addresses planning for transportation, finance and the Paralympics (a competition for disabled athletes held after the Olympic Games).
The new plan would reduce the original sprawl of competition sites while maintaining links to Sacramento (rowing, kayak and canoe at Lake Natoma), Napa (mountain biking at the Domain Chandon Winery) and Monterey (equestrian). Some early-round soccer games remain scheduled for San Diego and Los Angeles.
The proposed venue changes included in the addendum are:
- Archery: from Mather Park in Sacramento to Stanford University.
- Cycling: from a velodrome in Sacramento to one that will reside temporarily on the city of Santa Clara soccer fields, after which it will be permanently located in Antioch.
- Swimming, diving and synchronized swimming: from the Santa Clara Swim Center to Stanford.
- Water polo: from Stanford to the Santa Clara Swim Center.
- Baseball (secondary site): from Raley Field in Sacramento to Santa Clara University.
- Basketball (secondary site): from Haas Pavilion at UC Berkeley to Santa Clara University's Leavey Activity Center.
- Indoor volleyball: from Moscone Center in San Francisco to Haas Pavilion.
- Beach volleyball: from the Polo Grounds in San Francisco to Edwards Stadium in Berkeley.
- Main press center: from the San Mateo Convention Center to Moscone Center.
The most startling change is beach volleyball and the image of tons of sand being dumped on the infield at historic Edwards Stadium on the Cal campus. Built in 1932, Edwards Stadium was the first facility in the world devoted exclusively to track and field.
Sacramento would appear to be the big loser in BASOC's revised venue plan, with archery, cycling and preliminary baseball taken away.
But the city received a trade-off it considers more than favorable: in 2008 and 2012, the USOC named Sacramento the official training site for all U.S. teams before the Summer Games.
"Quite frankly, we're excited about the opportunity that evolved from it," said John McCasey, executive director of the Sacramento Sports Commission. "We came out ahead on that trade-off."
McCasey said Sacramento remained a strong supporter of the 2012 bid even though proposed competition sites were taken away from the state capital.
"We want to get the bid," he said. "We want to do whatever it takes. The USOC thought we needed to be more compact. They wanted to keep as many events in the core area as possible."
There was no discussion about removing rowing, canoe and kayak from Lake Natoma since it's considered one of the finest facilities in the country for those sports.
Now that the addendum is done, BASOC will concentrate on a visit by the USOC site selection committee July 14-15, following up on a trip to the Bay Area last August. The July visit coincides with the start of the modern pentathlon world championships at Stanford.
The next due date for BASOC is Oct. 1, when it must send the USOC a 100- page executive summary of its bid.
"It'll be the highlights," Cribbs said. "It will be our vision of each venue. Without saying too much more, I would want it to contain our philosophy of an athlete-supported bid and a bid that uses the best competitive conditions for athletes as our goal."
BASOC will hold a news conference a week from today to discuss international strategy for winning the bid and to "unveil our theme for the final stretch," Cribbs said.
E-mail John Crumpacker at jcrumpacker@sfchronicle.com.
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