(June 29, 2002)

Washington/Baltimore ready willing and able to host 2012 Olympics

WASHINGTON D.C. (June 29, 2002) As they take in the colorful Olympic flags hanging on lampposts, banners of local Olympians affixed to buildings and buttons touting an Olympics in the Washington-Baltimore area, U.S. Olympic Committee members who arrive into the District today may wonder whether someone has beaten them to their task and awarded the 2012 Summer Games early.

The Olympic trappings, draped around Washington earlier this week, were intended to put the final touches on a six-year-old Washington-Baltimore bid -- officially called Washington D.C. 2012 -- as it enters a crucial period. In early November, the USOC will choose the U.S. representative for the international contest for the Games, which will be awarded by the International Olympic Committee in 2005.

"The momentum is building in our community toward this visit and ultimately the selection in November," Washington-Baltimore bid president Dan Knise said this week. "The excitement is real and palpable."

The USOC site selection team will took one final tour Friday and serve up its last grilling of bid officials Saturday before moving on to the other cities in the hunt for the U.S. nomination: New York (Sunday and Monday), Houston (July 11-12) and San Francisco (July 13-14). In September the selection committee will cut the field from four to two.

Though Baltimore remains a focal point of the local bid, it won't even be highlighted during the USOC's fleeting visit. Constrained by time and determined to showcase what bid officials believe are groundbreaking changes in the bid, the Washington-Baltimore bid team decided to forego a second trip to Baltimore -- the selection committee went there last summer -- in favor of a slower-paced, more extensive look at what's new in the District.

To Washington D.C. 2012 officials, what's new holds the key to their chances. "Baltimore showed so well the first time," Knise said. "Part of us wants to be there again, but the flip side is we don't feel the pressure to retell it."

In a revision submitted to the USOC this spring, bid officials moved seven sports from Maryland or Virginia into the District, placing the heaviest concentration of marquee events in an assortment of permanent and temporary facilities at the current RFK Stadium site along the Anacostia River. Envisioning a revitalization of what is now a largely empty landmass, bid officials hope to convince the USOC they have the perfect spot to create a pulsating Olympic park in the image of the one that wowed spectators and officials at the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney.

They also hope to allay the USOC's concerns about transportation. Bid officials say they have shortened athletes' and ticket holders' travel times considerably, placing more events closer to mass transportation lines. That and this report from The Washington Post's Amy Shipley

The visit will begin this afternoon at the Thurgood Marshall Center, a community center in Washington's Shaw neighborhood on 12th Street NW. After a possible detour through Howard University and the Washington Convention Center site, the proposed locations of a number of sports, the 13 USOC officials will be shuttled to the University of Maryland campus to tour the prospective Olympic Village.

Finally, the USOC team will journey to RFK Stadium, where it will be introduced to land -- a lot of it -- by D.C. Sports and Entertainment Commission head Bobby Goldwater. Goldwater and bid officials will attempt to show the promise of an area currently dominated by parking lots and empty space just a few miles outside the U.S. Capitol.

That night, the USOC site selection team will attend a private dinner with some 150 local officials.

At the dinner and along the way, the USOC team will be bombarded by greetings and testimonials from local Olympians and Paralympians -- swimmer Tom Dolan, gymnast Jair Lynch, track and field's Benita Fitzgerald Mosely and Ann Cody, among others -- as well as a host of local officials, including Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley, Washington Mayor Anthony Williams and Washington D.C. 2012 Chairman John Morton III.

"Our goals are, first of all, to bring the plan we've written to life. . . . We feel we can accomplish that around the Olympic Village [at the University of Maryland] and RFK Stadium sites," Knise said. "Our second goal is to give them a chance to meet our people and work with our people in keeping with our commitment to developing a partnership.

"Our third is really to remind them of how strong our desire is to win, and how that can carry over into the international phase, having a positive affect the U.S. chances at the international level."

On Saturday, the showing off will end and the grilling will begin. The USOC and Washington-Baltimore bid officials will gather in a downtown District board room to deal with remaining questions and concerns from the USOC site selection team. Then, the selection committee will be off to New York, off to decide.

"We do feel we have a really strong case to make on the merits," Knise said. "We feel very good about being the first city, setting the standard again."

[Source: Amy Shipley, The Washington Post]