TORONTO HAS 20-20 OLYMPIC VISION...OR IS THAT 20-24?

Don’t think for a minute this isn’t serious talk.

 

Yes, we’ve all been down this road before. Several times, for some of us.

 

Toronto got smoked when it bid for the 1996 Summer Olympics, starting out ahead but then succumbing to political troubles at home and to the power of Atlanta and their gung-ho American team. And, yes, don’t forget that talk about the favours done for International Olympic Committee members.

 

The 2008 Summer bid was always a long shot. China had to have done something stupid to have lost the Games, and they didn’t. So that was that.

 

Now you come to 2020. Yes, it’s awfully soon after Vancouver’s 2010 Winter Games. Yes, it would be four Olympics in 44 years for a relatively puny country like Canada.

 

But here’s the thing: this might be the most winnable bid Toronto will ever have.

 

(I’m not saying the city should go for it. Personally, I think we’d get a lot out of the Pan Am Games in 2015 for very little cost and that security costs for the Olympics might outweigh the benefits.)

What I’m arguing isn’t that it’s a good idea, but that if you’re one of those folks who’s convinced it’s a good idea this might be the optimal time. And here’s why.

 

With Chicago having taking it, well, this is a family blog so we’ll say on the chin but you know what I mean, the United States is in ABSOLUTELY NO MOOD to jump back into the ring. An American bid is almost impossible unless the United States Olympic Committee does an absolute 180 degree turn and learns to get along with the IOC and not provoke it with repeated thrusts of a sharp stick.

Think about it; it’s time to come back to North America – the last Summer Games here were the forgettable Atlanta Olympics in 1996 - but there’s almost certainly no U.S. bidder. Which would leave Toronto in seemingly remarkable shape.

 

There’s also no sentimental favourite like Toronto faced in the 2008 vote with Beijing, or like Chicago just faced with Rio. With the 2016 Games in Rio, the only potential “you owe us the Games” candidate would be in Africa, which also has never hosted the Olympics. Right now, it’s hard to see an African bid on the horizon unless South Africa uses the 2010 World Cup as an Olympic trampoline for 2020.

 

That would be formidable, but I think that after the Rio bid the IOC likely will want to play one down the middle and go with Europe or Asia or North America. Tokyo might go again, and ditto for Madrid. Assuming former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch is still around, Madrid would be a formidable opponent for 2020. There’s been no indication yet that will happen, as the Madrilenos are still licking their wounds over last week’s loss to Rio.

 

Venice and Rome are talking about bids, which also would be interesting. Hey, Venice wouldn’t have to build a rowing course, right? Still, those aren’t exactly Beijing or Rio, are they? Any Olympic fight is tough. But 2020 appears to be, for now, about as wide open as you can imagine.

 

Several things would have to happen, of course. The folks who troll around the world gathering information and chatting with IOC types would have to gauge the IOC’s appetite for Toronto part III. Then you’d have to have the local will to get it done. I don’t think Mayor David Miller has ever been completely sold on the Pan Am bid, although I assume he’ll show the flag at the vote in Mexico next month. And I don’t know that he’d want to jump into an Olympic fight. But Miller has said he’s moseying off into the sunset, and there’s gonna be a new sheriff come November, 2010. I can see John Tory or George Smitherman being a lot more supportive of an Olympic bid, although who knows what local councillors or local opponents might do.

 

Then comes the potentially hard part; getting the Canadian Olympic Committee to endorse Toronto for 2020. They’re just gearing up for Vancouver and almost certainly don’t want to hear about another summer bid right now. They might have concerns about this being too soon. COC chief executive officer Chris Rudge told me last week he thinks 2020 is too soon, but that 2024 might work.

 

There are other, complicating factors, as there always seem to be in Canada. And that is Quebec.

Quebec City has bid for the Winter Games before and lost. And there are rumours it wants to go again, perhaps in 2022 or 2026.

 

The last thing this country needs is another set of bobsleigh runs, ski jumps and speedskating ovals. Geez, we’ve already got them in Calgary and now Vancouver/Whistler is replicating them a few hundred miles west. To have a third set of Olympic venues in this country would be sheer insanity and an incredible waste of taxpayers dollars.

 

But the COC is always mindful of being fair to all regions (to a fault, actually), which is why they opted to try for the Winter Games bid for Vancouver in 2010. And don’t forget that the new guy coming into head up the COC is none other than Quebecker Marcel Aubut. He will be under plenty of pressure to give Quebec City a Winter Olympics shot before letting Toronto potentially muck up the works.

 

This is all speculation, of course, but that’s what’s fun about the Olympic bid business.

 

One other thing to keep in mind. Bob Richardson, who was chief operating officer for the Toronto 2008 bid, was quoted in the Star on Sunday as saying there’s ZERO chance of a Toronto 2020 bid.

I don’t think he really means it. But Richardson is lobbying heavily for Toronto’s 2015 Pan Am Games bid, and he can’t be seen as lusting after a sexier dame when he’s twirling around the dance floor with Miss Pan Am, can he?

 

Richardson was passionate about the Toronto 2008 bid, and he undoubtedly loves the idea of 2020. Or at least 2024. But he’s got to deal with the November 6 Pan Am vote first. The last thing he wants is to have Toronto’s Pan Am opponents, Lima and Bogota, going around to Pan American Games voters and telling them that Toronto actually doesn’t love them but really wants the Olympics.

 

No, you’ll hear nothing positive from Richardson about a Toronto Olympic bid until he hears what happens with the Pan Am Games. But that doesn’t mean he or other folks who were instrumental in the 2008 bid aren’t standing eagerly on the sidelines, waiting for just the right moment to pounce. They are.

 

It’s gonna get interesting, folks.

 

PHELPS GETS THE BOOT

Gee, I thought Canada liked athletes who smoke dope. But I guess not.

Maybe it's the Harperization of Canada. Or maybe times have changed, but it's interesting that American swimmer/bong show boy Michael Phelps has been dropped as the keynote speaker at two events in Canada next week.

The promoter cited the Olympic champion swimmer's "widely publicized alleged use of marijuana," according to Associated Press.

Here's text from the AP story:

Power Within Inc. of Toronto, which organizes motivational speaking events, canceled Phelps' appearances at events in Calgary and Vancouver. Power Within initially stood by the swimmer, but has now booked actor Martin Sheen as its keynote speaker for the Calgary event. The Vancouver event will feature Mehmet Oz, a regular on The Oprah Winfrey Show.

"Due to widely publicized alleged use of marijuana by Michael Phelps, the decision has been made to present the program without Mr. Phelps' participation," the company said in statement released to several Canadian media outlets.

A British tabloid published a picture of Phelps smoking from a marijuana pipe at a party in Columbia, S.C., last November. Police said last week there was not enough evidence to charge Phelps, who won a record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Phelps has apologized for his actions, acknowledging he used "bad judgment" after the photo appeared. Last Friday, IOC president Jacques Rogge said Phelps deserves a "second chance."

Guess the folks at Power Within don't agree.

Calgary we can understand. But Vancouver? Where you can shoot up legally on the street? Oh, I see. That's okay; you can light a crack pipe on the Downtown East Side or fill your arm with heroin, but you can't allow a guy who won EIGHT gold medals at the Beijing Olympics to speak in public because he might've taken a couple deep breaths on a bong filled with marijuana at a private party.

Yeah, that makes sense.

JUST IN TIME

It may not help, but you have to think the folks who are trying to get golf into the Olympics are thrilled to see Tiger Woods teeing it up on the PGA Tour in Arizona this week. Woods has suggested in the past that he wouldn't be keen on an Olympic tournament, but if someone could get him to change his mind it would be a huge boost to golf's chances.

Dick Pound at his critical best

Canada’s only International Olympic Committee member has in the past defended his colleagues’ choice of this city as host for the coming Summer Olympic Games. But with the Games only a few hours away, Montreal lawyer Dick Pound today finds himself at the centre of a five-ring controversy that is surely leaving a sour taste in the mouths of his proud hosts.
In a group that prides itself on being politically correct and that’s led by a button-down surgeon from Belgium, the free-spirited Pound once again finds himself standing out in a crowd after levelling criticism at the Beijing torch relay and at the way IOC higher-ups handled a controversy over Internet access for Olympic journalists.
Pound specializes in ruffling feathers with his quick wit and willingness to engage his sharp tongue. Tuesday, during an otherwise routine IOC session, he suggested the Beijing Games might have faced political boycotts if not for the goodwill that poured in from around the world after the May earthquake in Sichuan province.
Pound said the relay should never have been allowed to be run outside China because outsiders were sure to protest the country’s handling of human rights issues and the situation in Tibet.
“This came very close to becoming a disaster,” he said as Chinese organizing committee leaders sat in silence at the front of the posh convention room at a hotel just a few blocks from Tiananmen Square. “The risks were obvious and should have been assessed a little more carefully."
In addition to taking on his IOC colleagues for allowing the torch relay to go outside China, the former McGill University chancellor blasted the committee’s handling of press complaints about China’s blocking of Internet sites it doesn’t like. Pound riled up Canada’s hockey community a couple years ago when, as head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, he suggested that as many as one-third of NHL players might be using performance-enhancing drugs.
IOC chief Jacques Rogge defeated Pound and a couple other candidates in an IOC presidential race in 2001, just days after Beijing beat Toronto and other cities for the 2008 Games A former IOC vice president, Pound has never been a fan of Rogge’s cautious approach at the Olympic helm.
Whether others take up his position and start firing away at the president remains to be seen. But for one day, at least, he seemed to have the leader of the Olympic movement back on his heels.

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Got to talking with colleague Dave Perkins about Pound’s remarks over dinner at a terrific restaurant on Dongzhemin Tuesday night when it suddenly occurred to me  (I’ve only covered Olympic issues for 20 years; gimme a break) that Canada is a country known for polite and reticent folks. Yet two of the most outspoken IOC members of the past couple decades come from Canada; Pound and former IOC member Paul Henderson of Toronto.
Henderson, of course, led Toronto’s 1996 Summer Olympic bid, which many said was destined for Athens but which Henderson thought – rightly, as it turned out - was North America’s for the taking. He was undone by a lack of support at Toronto city council and perhaps by some interesting bid work by Atlanta bid officials.
Henderson is the first to call a spade a spade, and he has consistently blasted away at bureaucrats who starve Canadian amateur athletes but then happily hook their wagons onto the Olympic bus and ride around to photo ops, their arms draped around the very athletes they failed to support. And good for him.
Somebody’s got to push the pencil-pushers in Ottawa and at Queen’s Park (and at City Hall and probably the school board), and Henderson’s not one to shy away.
Although he’s no longer an official IOC member, he still knows anyone and everyone in the movement. And he’s a huge supporter of the southern Ontario Pan American Games bid for 2015, figuring that an Olympics might never come our way but that the Pan Ams could bring some desperately needed upgrades to leaking swimming pools and deteriorating gyms and tracks.
Funny that a nice country like ours would spawn both Henderson and Pound. But good for us.

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ESCORT SERVICE

A cab dropped a couple of us off in the wrong spot for dinner the other night. We knew we had the right street, Dongzhemin, but it was littered with restaurants and we had no idea how to find the address we wanted. We showed the Chinese script someone had written out for us in the media centre and showed it to a guy on the street. In Toronto, the guy would’ve pointed in the right direction and left it at that. (In Paris, he’d have pointed in the wrong direction just to have a little fun, but that’s another story). Anyway, the young gentleman nodded and started walking with us. Every 50 or 100 yards he’d turn around to see where we were, and he kept pointing further down the street. We walked a block. Then another block. Then crossed a main street. Then walked another block. Then another. Finally, we find the right number and the right place. We offer up about $20 Canadian and he refuses – firmly – and walks away. My God, these people are remarkable.

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ULTRA COOL
Erin McLean of Whitby, one of the Canadian softball team members, is pretty happy to be in Beijing. Asked how it feels to be at the Olympics on a scale of 1 to 10, she replied, “It’s about a 12. It’s about as cool as it gets right now.”
McLean was to get a tour of the village on Wednesday and said her dad and aunts and uncles, as well as a couple of friends from back home, will be coming to watch her.

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SAY AGAIN?
Australian Olympic Committee vice president Peter Montgomery was asked about Aussie runner Tamsin Lewis saying she’s afraid she’ll have to run against drug cheats at the Beijing Games, thus hurting her chances at a medal.
“Tamsin is not known for hiding her light under a bushel,” he said.
Mind you, that’s not as good as my favourite Australian journalist, Jacqueline Magnay of the Sydney Morning Herald. Jacquie was decked out in a bright red, flowing dress the other night for the opening of the IOC session.
Asked about her attire, Magnay smiled and said she was simply getting a little “frocked up” for the occasion.

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COVER UP
Vancouver 2010 chief John Furlong revealed Wednesday that General Motors Place, home for hockey during the Winter Olympics, will officially be known as Canada Hockey Place once the Games begin. IOC rules forbid advertising on venues, so the name on the outside of the building will have to be covered up. That’s one thing if you’re an “outsider” to the Olympics. But GM happens to be an official sponsor of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. But IOC rules are IOC rules, and the General Motors section of the outside sign will have to go under wraps once the Games start.

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FRIES WITH THAT?
We’re beginning to like Canadian archer Jay Lyon. Lyon was joking the other day about how it’s still ice-skating season in Canada. He also was asked about his fitness regimen.
“I’m not much of an athlete,” he said. “I eat a lot of McDonald’s.”
McDonald’s being an official sponsor of the Olympics, methinks the comments did not go over well with the IOC’s sponsorship people.

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DAILY BLAST:
God, we love the China Daily. The newspaper had some real gems the other day.
One report told the story of a man in Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, has been blind since the age of eight but enjoys sewing. Instead of asking others to thread needles for him, the man, Gao Zhongsheng, has taught himself to do the job with his tongue.
The paper also reported that a woman in Xi’an, capital of Shaanxi province, was driven off a bus when her “loud and prolonged” phone call irritated other passengers. The woman is said to have used foul language and the paper said she “punctuated (her conversation) with raucous peals of laughter.” (We could use some vigilantes like that on the TTC).

A Night at the Opera

One of the advantages of being a media person at the Olympics is that you can wrangle yourself an invitation to the opening ceremony of the International Olympic Committee’s sessions.
The IOC holds meetings every couple years, and there’s always a big foofaraw at the start of one of their sessions, the 120th of which was held here the other day.
When the Sydney Games were held, the opening ceremony for the session was held, naturally, at the Sydney Opera House. There was local opera and aboriginal music, and it was terrific. In Moscow, when the IOC met to award the 2008 Games to Beijing instead of Toronto or Paris or Fresno (okay, it was Istanbul and Osaka), the celebration was at the Bolshoi, which is where colleague Dave Perkins and I rubbed shoulders with the guy he calls “Rootin’ Tootin’ Vladimir Putin.”
So it was with great anticipation that a couple dozen journalists rolled up to the stunning National Grand Theatre the other night in IOC buses (they had blocked half of downtown Beijing for us to go from the official IOC hotel to the concert venue, which always kind of troubles me. It’s nice to get special treatment, but I hate inconveniencing the locals just so I can get to a concert on time, and I also have to think they’re looking at some idiot from Toronto getting off a bus and thinking to themselves, who the hell is that guy and why does he get a police escort?. Anyway, the centre is a stunner; a glass and steel structure designed in the shape of an egg just a few yards down the road from Tiananmen Square. It’s gorgeous to behold, and it’s surrounded by a shimmering, man-made lake.
We entered from below, so when we stood in the reception area sipping our Tsing Tao and wine we could look up at the glass roof above us and see the “lake” waters shimmering.
A band in the upper balcony, hard by the media types, played the Chinese anthem, which is stirring but surprisingly short, and the Olympic anthem.
After the requisite “peace and harmony and sportsmanship” speeches from Chinese president Hu Jintao and IOC chief Jacques Rogge, the Chinese national orchestra appeared on a stage that rolled towards the audience on a hidden mechanism and clicked into place.
The music was lovely. But they had a fellow from southern California singing The Barber of Seville, and at the end they played “All Toast” from La Traviata. Only a couple numbers had any sort of Chinese sound to them.
The Beijing duck afterwards was great, and the post-concert reception showed off the stunning wood and glass roof in the centre. But it seemed like many folks were disappointed there wasn’t more of an Asian theme to the evening. We can hear La Traviata anywhere. But most of us who came from halfway around the world were dying for some Beijing opera or at least a couple acrobats.
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WHAT IF …
With the ceremony taking place in Beijing, someone who wrote about the 2008 Summer Olympic vote (Beijing, you may recall, defeated Toronto, Paris and Fresno, or was Toronto, Paris, Istanbul and Osaka; the memory fades) wondered what would’ve happened if Canada had somehow defeated the Chinese back at the IOC vote in Moscow in 2001.
“Everybody does it their own way,” said Bob Elphinston, who helped organize the Sydney Games and served on the evaluation commission that gave the white glove treatment to the 2008 bid cities prior to the IOC vote. “Nobody could hope to prepare anything the way the Chinese have. The scale is immense and the buildings are spectacular. The way they’ve dressed up the city, it’s fantastic.
“Canada is a great sports country and Toronto would’ve been terrific. You would’ve redeveloped your waterfront. But Beijing is different.”
Elphiston said some folks will compare Vancouver to Beijing, but the big pressure will be on London to try to live up to China’s Games when it hosts the 2012 Summer Olympics.
“This,” he said, “is going to be a tough act to follow.”
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FASHIONISTA
When it’s hot in Beijing, and it has been, it’s not uncommon to see men roll up their t-shirts over the top of their pot bellies. One guy the other day rolled his up to his breasts and rolled his sleeves over so it looked like he was wearing a white, cotton bra. That’s one fashion trend we hope doesn’t make its way to North America.
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FEELING THE HEAT
Chinese artistic gymnast Cheng Fei was talking the other day about the expectations placed on her and other athletes from China. “So many people expect us to get gold medals, and it’s really a great pressure for us. Sometimes I feel it’s hard to breathe or even cry under the pressure.”
Wow.
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ICE ICE BABY
We think he was kidding, but someone on Monday asked Canadian archer Jay Lyon how his training was going. “It took me a while to adjust,” he said. “I'm from Canada; it’s practically still winter there. People are still ice skating.”
Nice job perpetuating the stereotypes there, buddy.
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PRIORITIES
Canadian sailor Zac Plavsic was asked about his favourite things in life. “I love RS:X sailing,” he said, “but playing guitar is more important to me.” Guess we shouldn’t be penciling him in for a medal?