On the Scene in Bali: 2016 Olympic Cities Appeal to Asia

Chicago, Madrid, Tokyo and Rio de Janeiro outlined their cases to the Asian Olympic leaders, representing 44 NOCs across the continent, with nearly two dozen IOC members from the region. The OCA convened a one-day general assembly around the beach games.

The presentations from the four cities come after a similar appearance a week ago before the Pan American Sports Organization general assembly in Acapulco.

The bids got a surprise on the evening before the presentations, when the OCA executive board switched the time for their appearances from the afternoon to the morning.

As he did in Acapulco, IOC President Jacques Rogge addressed the meeting, noting the significance of the 2016 race.

“Next year, of course, is going to be a very important year, because we are going to elect a host city in October, 2009,” he told the assembly.

“We have a friendly and very fair play competition between the four excellent cities that you all know about and definitely this is something that is going to contribute a lot to the Olympic movement.

“Whoever might win – and I wish all cities good luck – we will have a very good organizer, I’m quite sure for that.”

But Rogge departed the meeting almost immediately after his address, and unlike Acapulco, did not hear the presentations from the four cities.

During their 20-minute presentations, the cities on the whole delivered almost the exact same messages as they did at the PASO meeting, with a little regional tweaking.

As in Acapulco, the cities avoided detail on specific Games plans, trying instead to make an emotional impact and no questions were taken from the floor. Each of the presentations used well-produced video sequences with the absence of any obvious glitches.

The four cities will next have the opportunity to present to an Olympic audience at the 37th general assembly of the European Olympic Committees on November 21-22 in Istanbul.

Chicago

After a brief introduction by senior U.S. IOC member Anita DeFrantz, bid chairman Patrick Ryan was the dominant figure in the Chicago presentation, which placed emphasis on the multicultural makeup of the city.

“Let me tell you why Chicago and why now. Chicago is one of the most diverse cities in the world. People from over 150 countries have come to Chicago to make their homes, but they maintain their cultural traditions and they live in friendship and harmony,” Ryan told the meeting.

“They’re very passionate about bringing the Games to Chicago – 86 per cent want to host the Games.”

Photos of US presidential candidate and Chicago resident Barack Obama and multiple Olympic swimming gold medalist Michael Phelps remained in the visual package played on the large screens on either side of the meeting while members of the bid team spoke.

The other speakers included Chicago 2016 director of sport Bill Scherr, USOC vice president Bob Ctvrtlik, USOC director of international strategies Dragomir Cioroslan and Selim Bassoul, a Lebanese national who immigrated to Chicago and successfully built a multinational business empire.

A computer-generated “virtual fly-over” of Chicago, highlighting the compact nature of the venue layout, underpins a slick visual message of why the city should be awarded the Games.

In terms of emphasizing the multicultural composition of the city, Bassoul was meant to bridge the cultural gap with the Asian audience. Through his own success story, he depicted the U.S. as a place built on aspirations.

“I think the presentation was very well received, in fact on the way out (of the meeting room), I had two people stop me in the aisle telling me Chicago had great visuals and a great presentation,” Bassoul tells Around The Rings.

“The team worked very well together and we’re a bit more diverse than the rest.”

He says his own experience with the city gives him great confidence that Olympics visitors from more than 200 nations that take part in the Games, will feel welcome and at home in Chicago.

“I believe in Chicago, it provided me with a great working environment. Not once in my 30 years in America have I been discriminated against or even received a (racially adverse) comment,” he says.

Rio de Janeiro

After enlisting the support of football great Pele in Acapulco earlier this month, did Rio de Janeiro risk anti-climax in Bali, with Pele elsewhere?

Rio de Janeiro responded with the so-called “Pele of beach volleyball”, legendary sportswoman Adriana Behar.

Rio 2016 secretary general Carlos Osorio successfully raised a chuckle from the assembly when explaining that despite the long distance between Brazil and Asia, they still share a close relationship with millions of people of Middle Eastern descent living in Brazil.

“This year we are celebrating the 100th anniversary of Japanese immigration to Brazil. I don’t know if you’re aware but Brazil has the largest Japanese community in the world outside Japan.

“To celebrate this important date with us, the Crown Prince of Japan came to Brazil to visit us and to celebrate.

“Brazilian and Japanese look so much alike nowadays that I’m certain you’ll have some difficulties working out which is the Japanese delegation today and which is the Brazilian one.”

He rattled off the rankings of Brazil in the world as a leading consumer market. He made the youth appeal, noting that about a third of the 190 million-plus population is under the age of 18.

Perhaps the most compelling emotional appeal for the Rio bid – that South America has never hosted an Olympics was repeated but appeared deliberately not to have been emphasized.

“Rio is a passionate city. Its natural beauty, diversity and energy will provide an incredible stage for the Games,” Rio 2016 chief and Brazilian IOC member Carlos Nuzman told the assembly.

“The venues will be full and the celebration will pour onto the streets. To have the Olympic Games in Brazil in 2016 will be the greatest honor, not just for us, but for all South America who would play host to the world’s greatest event for the first time on our continent.”

Madrid

The so-called “credit crunch” that has triggered a global financial crisis is a cause for concern for most world citizens, but Madrid has shown opportunism and creativity in harnessing the situation for its own benefit.

The Madrid team, led by Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, has changed its catch-phrase of “vitality and viability” to “vitality and reliability”.

This is aimed at highlighting the excitement of Madrid life, while the concept of reliability refers to a more expansive series of factors supporting the bid.

They include the overwhelming public support, support from political parties and other stakeholders such as trade unions and the freshly-added contention that, with an estimated 70 percent of sporting facilities in place there will be less exposure to any financial crisis.

“If you listened to our presentation, we did not try to customize anything more than some very basic things,” Samaranch Jr. tells Around The Rings.

“We have a very concrete proposal based on the vitality of the city and on the reliability, which means that in today’s environment – very difficult from an economic point of view with a lot of uncertainty – we offer something that is basically 70 per cent built and paid for.”

Among the tweaks for the Asian audience, some video packages incorporating English text facts also had translations displayed in Arabic script.

The presenter lineup also included Madrid Mayor, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon, bid chief Mercedes Coghen and Spanish athlete, triple jump national champion and record-holder Carlota Castrejana Fernandez.

Perhaps the most impressive part of the Madrid presentation was a slickly produced visual depiction of the city in the year 2017, with individuals describing how the Olympics would have affected them.

“Madrid is a place where you will be able to develop all your sense of day and night, a city which is pulsing with the joy of life,” Ruiz-Gallardon told the assembly before introducing the video at the end of the presentation.

“There is only one thing missing, the opportunity to host the 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

Ruiz-Gallardon was also mayor of the city in 2005, when it missed out on hosting the 2012 Games, to London and says experiencing the bidding process was invaluable and still produced a very good result.

Tokyo

Ichiro Kono, chairman of the Tokyo bid, led the presentation with participation from Tokyo 2016 Athletes Commission member and Seoul 1988 Olympic synchronized swimming medalist, Mikako Kotani.

Also part of the presentation team were IOC members Shunichiro Okano and Chiharu Igaya, Japanese Olympic Committee president Tsunekazu Takeda and executive director of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Bid Promotion Division, Nagatoshi Nakamura.

Igaya, also an IOC vice president, told the assembly his father, Kunio Igaya, was a keen painter who, during his travels throughout southeast Asia, had created a piece inspired by Bali, and the sentimental effect this had in his first trip to the island.

Tokyo team members said they felt they were warmly received by the assembly, the only Asian candidate city. Kono says the body language of those in the room for the presentation, indicated to him that they were both interested and receptive to the Tokyo bid message.

“Looking around, the faces were targeting me. I’m very much confident of getting the support of the Asian people,” Kono tells Around the Rings.

Members of the Tokyo team wore traditional Balinese clothing as a mark of respect for their hosts.

“We are one of the family from Asia, so it is very much an honor to be able to put on the traditional shirts in Bali in Indonesia,” Kono says.

During the presentation Kono told the assembly that Japan needs an iconic event with new sports venues to help inspire millions of young Japanese to take up sport.

“This will be made possible, because the 2016 Games coincide with Tokyo Big Change – our Ten Year Plan for the comprehensive urban and environmental transformation of the Greater Metropolitan Tokyo area,” he says.

“The 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games will be a catalyst for the world’s greatest, metropolitan make-over. This will leave the Olympic Movement with an incredible legacy to inspire future bid cities.”

Kotani says she is pleased with the efforts of the Tokyo presentation team and believes they were able to connect with the audience.

“I felt the warmth from the room and lots of cheering and clapping and after the presentation a friend from the OCA came up to me and said we had a great presentation, so I am happy,” she says.

Written by Anthony Stavrinos

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