City’s New Olympic Bid Designed To Avert Disaster

New York’s Olympic bid team will span the globe this week to build and sell Olympic bid Part II.Before the weekend, Mayor Bloomberg will accompany NYC2012 founder Daniel Doctoroff and Congo-born basketball star Dikembe Mutombo at an important gathering of African International Olympic Committee members in Ghana. This final Olympic meeting before the vote in Singapore would normally be a critical opportunity to sway a few votes, but for New York, it has now become a first test of the new Mets Stadium concept. Initial feedback might give the bid team some indication of whether they’re still in the running for the 2012 Games.Meanwhile, NYC2012’s technical experts will be traveling to various points in Europe to discuss the new stadium with sports federations that would rely on it during the Games. The international athletics and football associations will have to bestow their blessings on the technical specifications of the plan, and the bid may have to make minor adjustments before the IOC will be willing to allow the changes.The new plan includes an unprecedented conversion strategy that may raise some eyebrows overseas. The Mets Stadium will start as a baseball stadium, be converted to an Olympic stadium, and then revert back to the original configuration. While Olympic stadiums evolved into baseball venues for both Montreal 1976 and Atlanta 1996, in each case they opened first for the Olympics. But both stadiums were still prone to problems during and after the Games.It seems NYC2012 considered these past problems and have planned a warm-up track directly adjacent to the stadium, a key component missing from Atlanta’s design. They’ve also abandoned the Jets Stadium idea of building a roof after the Games, a concept that never worked well as a planned legacy in Montreal. But the bid team isn’t leaving anything to chance and they’ve sent personnel to Kansas City this week to work closely with the Mets’ stadium designers.If they get it right, the odds are good that the IOC will allow the changes and include New York on the final ballot. The last thing the IOC, the United States Olympic Committee, and NYC2012 want to see is New York withdrawing from the race. That would leave a permanent black mark on what has become the most exciting and perhaps most fairly contested bid in recent history.But with three weeks left, the controversy may be just beginning.You may remember that in April, London’s bid was forced to withdraw incentives that were introduced at a sports conference in Berlin. The argument made by the IOC president, Jacques Rogge, was that, against the rules, new items had been added to their plan, and he was afraid that that kind of activity could incite a bidding war reminiscent of the scandalous 1990s. Certainly the circumstances surrounding London’s incentives and New York’s revised stadium plan are entirely different, but if the IOC approves NYC2012’s changes, the competing bids could claim that the playing field has become uneven. And they would be right.A source close to London’s bid says that the IOC might find itself in a bind. With only days to go before the election, the IOC won’t have a fair opportunity to reassess New York’s overall plan, and they presumably won’t be able to issue a comprehensive revised evaluation report – the key tool that IOC members are intended to use while making their host city choice. Since the Olympic Stadium plan is highly interactive with other venue, transportation, and accommodation plans – it is arguable that a new IOC evaluation would be entirely different, and perhaps worse. For example, under the new plan, most hotels are farther away from the stadium – and in a different direction – causing a major change in traffic flow.Although NYC2012 has promised to submit a detailed revised plan to the IOC, will the assessment of one plan and the specifications of another plan cause confusion for IOC members? Will this confusion favor New York?Paris and London may keep quiet to avoid jeopardizing their strong and stable standing, but Moscow and Madrid could object since the IOC raised concerns about their bids that they might like the opportunity to correct. Additionally, there are thoughts that the IOC is setting an ugly precedent allowing bids to organize backup plans with the intention of executing them at the last minute.NYC2012 officials have openly admitted that the revised plan is not as good as the original, and regardless of your personal preference, in the eyes of the IOC they’re probably right. It’s pretty clear that the Mets Stadium plan is designed to keep the USOC and future American bids happy by averting embarrassment and disaster – but not necessarily to win.We’ll see how many IOC members agree after the first ballot in Singapore.Mr. Livingstone is the producer of GamesBids.com.

City’s New Olympic Bid Designed To Avert Disaster

City’s New Olympic Bid Designed To Avert Disaster

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