Jun 14, 2009 12:33 pm US/Central
Chicago 2016 Team Heads to Olympic HQ
CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) ―
Chicago and the three other finalist cities competing to host the 2016 Summer Olympics are in the crucial final laps of the race for the Games.
Mayor Daley and a small entourage from the Chicago 2016 organizing committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee are traveling to Olympic headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland, to make a final sales pitch before as many as 90 of the 100 members of the International Olympic Committee -- the governing body that plans to announce Oct. 2.
The meeting Wednesday and Thursday is significant because it's the first time the IOC has held such an event just 100 days shy of the final vote. The 100-plus members of the IOC will select a winning city for the 2016 Games on Oct. 2 in Copenhagen.
Among the finalist cities, Chicago is the only one that hasn't offered a blanket guarantee against potential Olympic losses. Instead, the Games here would be bankrolled by private donations, with insurance and backup guarantees from the city and state.
It has been 25 years since the IOC has awarded the Olympics to a city whose bid did not include a blanket guarantee.
"We're going to talk about the strength of our guarantee and hopefully educate the majority of the IOC members on why we have a guarantee above just a government guarantee," said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for Chicago 2016, which estimates that hosting the Olympics here will cost $4.8 billion.
This week's event is"the first opportunity to get this large a group of IOC members in one room to present Chicago," said Patrick Ryan, who heads Chicago 2016.
"Secondly, it's at a time when everybody is focusing. All the IOC members are focused on the competition, people had been thinking about it but not really focused. So this is ... crunch time."
Each city's 45-minute presentation to the IOC on Thursday will be followed by a question-and-answer session that could reveal IOC members' concerns.
The other finalist cities are Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo.
The rules of engagement between the bid cities and the Olympic committee are strict, aimed at preventing the kind of bribery scandal that marred Salt Lake City's successful bid for the 2002 Winter Gmes.
An IOC evaluation team already has made visits to each city. Those assessments will be passed along to voting members and the public in September.
But representatives of the finalist cities and IOC members can meet only at sanctioned events, including an upcoming presentation in Africa before that continent's 17 IOC members.
Phone calls and written correspondence are allowed.
Between now and Oct. 2, "There's going to be a constant communication process where we're getting Chicago better known and understood," Ryan said.
He said it's too close to predict who might win the Games, though outgoing USOC chief Peter Ueberroth praised Chicago last week as "the leader," and the widely read Olympics-watching Web site Around The Rings ranked Chicago first.
(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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