Daily Telegraph
CITIES bidding for the Olympic Games are much like politicians: they rarely acknowledge that they are not well ahead of their field. Yet Toronto are vigorously promoting the idea that they are second to Beijing as the choice for the 2008 Olympics, the vote for which takes place in Moscow next month.
Two of the politicians closely associated with the bid, David Crombie, the former mayor of Toronto who chairs the bid committee, and Mike Harris, the Premier of Ontario, exult in the thought that with a month to go Toronto are well placed at second.
Back in 1995 when Crombie first had the idea for a bid, he went to Atlanta to see how they had won the right to stage the 1996 Games, defeating Toronto among other cities. “I talked to Billy Payne, the leader of the Atlanta bid, said Crombie. “He said, `we just worked to be second and when it did not go for Athens it came to us’.”
Mike Harris, who has if anything worked harder in wooing International Olympic Committee members than he does Ontario voters, said: “This is not like a general election but more like a leadership campaign. The victor is not the person first past the post. To win you need 50 plus one in the final ballot. I can tell you that from many leadership races the person who is first on the first ballot is not around even on the last ballot, let alone successful.”
It is tempting to say all this is Toronto spin. But there is also a fine calculation. It is based on the belief that although Beijing may be in front, they do not have enough votes to win on the first ballot. Seven years ago, Beijing led on all the ballots except the final one when they were overtaken by Sydney by two votes. Toronto are sure that if they can get to a final ballot with Beijing, having eliminated Paris, Osaka and Istanbul on the way, they will emulate Sydney.
This explains much of the strategy of the Toronto bid which is an interesting mixture of the traditional Canadian emphasis on `niceness’, but laced with a hard sell which has got them in trouble with the IOC. If Beijing have pitched their bid on the ground that China, as the most populous country in the world, deserves the Olympics, then Toronto have focused on the claim that this is the place athletes would want to come for the Games.
John Bitove, the businessman who is chief executive officer of Toronto’s bid said: “If the Olympic movement is centred on the Olympic Games and the Games are centered on the athletes, then we should win because our bid is centred on the athletes.”
Toronto claim that they consulted athletes before deciding on a sports concept where 25 of the 28 events will be staged at 17 venues along the Toronto waterfront involvong some 85 per cent of the athletes. Toronto is in effect seeking to create its own Sydney-style Homebush right in the centre of town. An energetic walker could visit most of the venues on foot, covering as they do some four miles of the waterfront, and even the rowing and sailing would be there, with only tennis, equestrianism and boxing further away.
Of all the bidding cities I have visited, Toronto have the most athletes on hand to show off the proposed sites and the one who accompanied me was provided a heaven-sent opportunity to advertise how safe the city is. A colleague had misplaced his bag, containing money, traveller’s cheques, tapes and films, at one of the sites. But when he went back he found it was still there. The athlete beamed as he said: “Even if you want to, you cannot lose your valuables in Toronto.” Then he recounted the story of how a film crew tried to make one of Toronto’s streets look dirty and more `inner city’ by arranging for some rubbish to be strewn about. It was left overnight, the idea being for the crew to come back the next morning and shoot an authentic scene of grimy city streets, but when they returned the rubbish had been cleared away.
All this is what may be called old Toronto: safe, clean, boring. However, the city has, in the last 20 years, largely through migration from Asia, transformed itself into a vibrant multi-cultural. “To stage the Games here would show how five million people of different cultures and nations can get on. This is what the Olympic movement is based on and Toronto is a shining example,” said Bitove.
“The city is so culturally diverse that every team that comes here is going to find a cheering section, every team that comes here is going to find friendly neighbourhoods to go and eat and visit. We have something here which I think is a tremendous advantage over Beijing.”
When I suggested to Harris that Beijing’s thrust for the Games may be greater then Toronto’s, he immediately shot back: “Toronto has a thirst for these Games.”
So much so that at times they have pushed a touch too hard. With the new rules not allowing IOC members to visit bid cities, Toronto have tried to reach out to them. They have gone to every IOC meeting and made sure Toronto’s name has been in the spotlight.
The IOC have occasionally found the spotlight too powerful. Last month, when the evaluation commission published their report, Toronto planned a party and had posters put up in Lausanne advertising their bid. The IOC forced them to cancel the party and remove all references to the bid from the posters, leaving bemused Lausanne citizens to wonder why they were being urged to visit Toronto.
© Mihir Bose
