San Francisco touts diversity, beauty, existing facilities

Rob Gloster, AP Sports Writer

October 30, 2002 -- PALO ALTO, CA : Towering redwoods and the fog-shrouded Golden Gate Bridge provide the scenic backdrop. The surrounding Silicon Valley contributes the economic vitality. Every street corner offers ethnic diversity rivaled by few cities in the world.

What truly sets apart San Francisco's bid for the 2012 Olympics, though, is Anne Cribbs, an Olympic gold medalist and co-founder of the first U.S. women's professional basketball league.

Cribbs is CEO of the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee, which is vying to bring the Summer Games to Northern California a decade from now. A groundbreaker and successful businesswoman, Cribbs exemplifies the diversity and vision she hopes will persuade the U.S. Olympic Committee to choose San Francisco over New York as the U.S. bid city to host the games.

"This is where the future happens. We think this is where the Olympic movement can do a bit of a shift, making it more for the athlete," Cribbs said. "Maybe, without being arrogant, the Olympics needs San Francisco."

The city chosen Saturday by the USOC in Colorado Springs, Colo., will compete with several international cities for the right to host those Olympics. The International Olympic Committee will choose the host city in 2005.

Bay Area bid officials envision Olympic mountain biking in Napa vineyards, sailing events on San Francisco Bay and other sports held within a "Ring of Gold" connecting four sites -- San Francisco, Oakland/Berkeley, Stanford and San Jose/Santa Clara.

Bay Area backers point out that 80 percent of the sports facilities targeted for the 2012 Olympics, including 85,000-seat Stanford Stadium, already exist. That would keep costs down, and bid officials propose capital investment of just $211 million -- extremely low by Olympic standards.

The bidders promise a $409 million surplus for the USOC that would be used for the future development of Olympic sports in the United States. And, they argue, the low capital investment and the support of Silicon Valley corporations mean San Francisco could avoid the crass commercialism that tainted the 1996 Atlanta Games.
"It would be a monster in terms of uplifting the Bay Area. It would help the economy and the young people," said Jim Hines, a two-time gold medalist at the 1968 Mexico City Games who lives in suburban San Francisco. "The Bay Area is perfect for the 2012 Olympics. We can beat New York."

San Francisco touts its Olympic bid as one catering to athletes, in terms of transportation, and a dry, mild climate that averages a daily high of 72 in July and August -- though anyone who has ever shivered in the summer fog at Candlestick Park knows a sweat shirt is a year-round necessity.

And bid officials say Silicon Valley innovation could help reform an Olympic movement trying to downsize and modernize.

California has the fifth-largest economy in the world, and the state is the top U.S. destination for foreign tourists. It also has been a big part of American success at the Olympics: Californians have won more than 700 Olympic medals, including 181 by Stanford students and alums.

At the 2000 Sydney Games, California would have placed sixth among all nations with 45 medals.

San Francisco is bidding to become the third California site in Olympic history. Los Angeles has hosted the Summer Games twice and Squaw Valley has hosted the Winter Games.

"With a proud and proven Olympic heritage, California is ready to be a great partner to the USOC," Gov. Gray Davis said in August when San Francisco and New York became the finalists for the bid.

Besides Cribbs, athletes supporting the Bay Area bid are former Olympians Matt Biondi (swimming), Michael Johnson (track), Brian Boitano (skating) and Kerri Strug (gymnastics).

Cribbs was 15 when she won a swimming gold medal at the 1960 Rome Games as part of the 400-meter medley team. In 1995, she co-founded the short-lived American Basketball League, which competed with the WNBA before folding in 1998.

Cribbs sits in a cluttered office filled with Olympic souvenirs: the first ball created for the ABL and a letter from President Clinton applauding her support of Title IX, which helped fuel the explosive growth in U.S. women's sports in recent decades.

In the days leading up to Saturday's choice, she is stressing San Francisco's suitability as an Olympic host and trying not to worry about what many observers believe will be a vote of sympathy for New York as it recovers from the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"We really have focused on what's positive about our bid, from the finances to the setting," she says. "I asked people in our bid committee not to discount the sympathy; we all know it's there. We just have to make a case about what's good about our bid."