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San Francisco said to be top choice
John Crumpacker, Chronicle Staff Writer
July 17, 2002—Officials working to bring the 2012 Summer Olympics to the Bay Area were encouraged Tuesday by a report that San Francisco and Washington, D.C., are believed to be the front-runners in the domestic competition to host the Games.
The Washington Post, quoting an unnamed U.S. official, said San Francisco and Washington now had an advantage over New York and Houston, the other two cities in the running.
The United States Olympic Committee will formally narrow the field to two in September and, on Nov. 3, name the U.S. city to compete internationally for the right to host the Games.
"We would be honored to be one of the two cities," said Anne Cribbs, president and CEO of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, the group working on the San Francisco bid. "We continue to believe we can win internationally."
Organizing committee bid director Bob Stiles, who worked on Atlanta's successful pursuit of the 1996 Olympics, said, "We feel very strongly that we ought to be in the final two. It's really atmospheric, when you come down to it. The city of San Francisco's international character is a great starting place. That makes our candidacy very special."
The USOC's 13-member site inspection team wrapped up the last of its four city visits in San Francisco on Sunday and Monday. The USOC has not begun ranking the four cities on issues such as international strategy, Paralympic plan, financial stability and transportation.
While the anonymous Washington Post report encouraged optimism among some local backers of San Francisco's bid, others cautioned that it seemed premature.
And the story drew a strong response from a spokesman for the USOC, which is based in Colorado Springs.
"N-o-n-s-e-n-s-e," spelled out Mike Moran, the USOC's assistant executive director. "They haven't even ranked them yet. It's hard to comment on that because it just isn't true. It's Aesop's fables. It is not accurate. Basically,
it's fiction. That's unfortunate. I don't think it's coming from the bid group, and outside the bid group, no one is in position to know."
Charles Moore, a 1952 Olympian in track and field, is chairman of the USOC site inspection team. He said he didn't believe the comment about San Francisco and Washington having an edge over New York and Houston had come from his committee.
"There's absolutely no credence to that statement," Moore said Tuesday night. "We're not there yet. They may have an edge, but we haven't gotten there yet. I'd be very surprised if it was one of our task force. Our task force, to a person, has been very closed-mouthed. I think it's someone conjecturing."
Based on the nature of the four cities and their bids, it is possible to speculate on a possible pecking order.
San Francisco has a strong international reputation and, by far, the best weather of the four cities.
Washington's bid was greatly enhanced by concentrating more of its venues in the District of Columbia instead of Virginia and Maryland. The new plan calls for an Olympic stadium and waterfront renovation of the Anacostia River on the site of the current RFK Stadium, former home of the NFL's Washington Redskins.
New York's bid is by far the most expensive of the four, approximately $4 billion, based on the amount of construction that would need to be done in the seven years leading up to the Games. This comes at a time when IOC President Jacques Rogge is trying to control the size and cost of hosting the Olympics.
Houston has had a solid bid from the start, with many of its venues already in place, but it has little chance to win an international competition against such expected bid cities as London, Paris, Rome, Moscow and Berlin. Houston also has the worst summer weather of the four U.S. bid cities.
"We have not begun to compare the four cities at all," Moore said. "There's no shortfalls to any of the bids. They did a great job in responding to what we felt were the criteria. There's been no consideration that any two cities may have an advantage."
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