Heavy hitters offer Chicago Olympic advice
Games not a 'big moneymaker and a source of economic development'
CHICAGO - Chicago Olympics organizers can turn to some big names with proven track records for advice on how to win the selection process and then run the 2016 Summer Games.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rescued the scandal-plagued 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth ran the profitable 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and is chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and Masters tournament chief Billy Payne helped Atlanta win the 1996 Summer Games over Athens, Greece, the Olympics’ birthplace.
Each recently talked to The Associated Press about what Chicago should do to win its first Olympics and then host a successful Games. Their advice was simple: make friends on the International Olympic Committee, train many volunteers and don’t do it for the money.
“I hope people don’t think it’s a big moneymaker and a source of economic development and good for business, because that’s not what the Olympics is about,” Romney said. “The Olympics is about an opportunity to serve the world and to welcome the world.”
By the end, many felt the Salt Lake City experience became what Romney describes. But that happened only after a bribery scandal in the selection process shook the Olympic movement to its core, resulting in many of the changes Chicago must deal with in this revamped, and supposedly cleaned up, selection process.
And Atlanta? It was unwieldy, included a fatal bombing at Centennial Olympic Park and is largely considered the most over-commercialized Olympics in the history of the modern games.
Chicago is new to the Olympic selection process, and the Chicago 2016 organizing committee can learn plenty from both the successes and failures the three American cities experienced.
With USOC guidance, the Chicago group already has reached out to leaders of the 2012 London Olympics and the Athens and Barcelona Games, Chicago 2016 spokesman Patrick Sandusky said. And Romney met with Mayor Richard Daley during a campaign visit to Chicago in April.
The road to hosting the Games begins with getting to know people in the international sporting world and on the IOC, which Payne said was necessary for Atlanta because the Southern city wasn’t well-known outside the United States.
“It occurred to us early on that coming out of the blue as we did virtually unknown ... that the best way that we could compete would be to secure the trust and the friendship of the respective (IOC) members and hoping in the process to convince them that we would be great custodians of this wonderful gift which they give every four years,” Payne said.
For Chicago, which has some international recognition but is largely known for its past of gangsters and slaughterhouses, that means hosting international competitions and attending major events.
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About 5,500 athletes from 42 countries are expected to attend the Olympic-style Pan Ams, which begin Saturday and run through July 29.
For Daley, it’s another chance to interact with IOC members, whose contact with bid cities has been limited by Olympic rules enacted following the Salt Lake City bribery scandal. A few days before he left for Brazil, Daley said he would talk up Chicago, its history and its diversity by touting “how great the people are, first and foremost.”
“This city is a, really a secret throughout the world,” he said.
Ueberroth said Chicago’s high-profile mayor — whom he described as “shake your hand, make a promise, keep a promise” — is key to the city’s efforts to build trust among the IOC members and eventually win the 60 votes needed to get the Games.
“They basically will vote for the people that they trust and that they know that are going to stay the course,” Ueberroth said.
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