Colorado Springs – United States Olympic Committee chairman Peter Ueberroth challenged the federal government Monday to more strongly champion future American bid cities or the USOC may be unable to bring the Games back to home soil.
Still smarting from New York City’s late fade in the race for the 2012 Summer Games, Ueberroth said the USOC is now looking “less favorably” at a 2016 domestic bid. And the USOC may stay out of the selection process, he added, until America’s political leaders make “a moral commitment to say: ‘We want the Games in the United States.”‘
“If you’re going to win, I think we need every single part of our country lined up. If we go in ragtag, we’re not going to win,” Ueberroth said at the U.S. Olympic media summit, four days of mingling between Olympic athletes and journalists.
U.S. cities hoping to snare the Summer or Winter Olympics must show they have “total support” from state officials, the private sector and the federal government before the USOC will offer them as a candidate, Ueberroth said. Those are, he said, “the new rules” of Olympic bidding and the United States can no longer “go into this bid process trying to half-do it.”
In this fresh era, the International Olympic Committee wants to see all layers of a bid city’s government – from its local mayor to its national lawmakers – work up a sweat while campaigning. U.S. officials typically have refrained from that kind of politicking. But London successfully used British Prime Minister Tony Blair to court IOC voters in Singapore last summer, and France sent President Jacques Chirac into the bidding trenches as well.
“The U.S. goes in and says, not in an arrogant fashion, but it appears in an arrogant fashion to the rest of the world, ‘You know, we understand all your rules, but we kind of don’t do a few of them, but here we are, vote for us.’ We need to examine that,” Ueberroth said.
“We learned a little from watching Chirac and watching Tony Blair walking the halls of Singapore. … I’m not saying we won’t bid at all (without similar backing from American leaders). I’m saying we’re going to be very careful and understand it all before (cities) start spending money and getting very enthusiastic and competing against each other. Let’s get smart.”
Three months from the Winter Games in Turin, U.S. Olympic officials also are changing their tune on medal predictions. Where USOC honchos vowed a 100-medal haul in Athens – and later accomplished that feat – they are refusing to make golden forecasts for Turin.
At the Salt Lake Games in 2002, Team USA won a record 34 medals, two behind Germany. On Monday, USOC chief executive officer Jim Scherr would say only that he expects to duplicate that effort.
But he added a fat caveat: After hosting an Olympics, nations historically win 40 percent fewer medals four years later. That means Team USA would take home 20 medals in Turin.
“We have no less emphasis, no less drive on performance. We’re simply not going to set a minimum or a maximum (medal goal),” Scherr said. “In some cases, it really is unfair to the team. It raises unfair expectations.
“I think we’re going to again surprise the world. Prior to the Salt Lake Games, we were an afterthought as a winter sports nation. We’re out to prove (the 2002) performance wasn’t an aberration.”
Bill Briggs can be reached at 303-820-1720 or bbriggs@denverpost.com.
