On-the-Scene -- Madrid Seeks Answers

(ATR) Spain has spent a week looking for the reasons behind Madrid's unexpected and disappointing first round departure from the vote to choose the city to host the Olympic Games in 2020 at the IOC Session in Buenos Aires.

A wave of confidence in a Madrid victory had built up since the IOC Executive Board meeting in July in Lausanne, helped in no small part by the Spanish media.

There was a degree of triumphalism from both the state-run TVE and the city-run Telemadrid. Both ran daylong special programs on the vote last Saturday.

The comedown from what some pundits were calling a "certain victory" has been abrupt. The blame is being shared in equal parts among the politicians leading the bid, the fragile state of the Spanish economy, and a poor Spanish record of punishing drug cheats.

A lot of media and public attention immediately after the defeat focused on the presentations of the Spanish team. Special attention was given to city mayor Ana Botella.

Left wing publication El Publico wrote Botella addressed the IOC in "meager English" while El Pais asked whether it would have been better "if the Mayor had given her speech in Spanish."

El Mundo newspaper asked experts in communication specifically what was wrong with the speech. One said, "It was an Anglo-Saxon delivery of a very Latino message, which required a more natural delivery to be effective."

El Pais was concise about Madrid’s failure to convince the IOC on Spain’s doping record. In an article titled "Madrid’s Worst Nightmare," reference was made to IOC member Adam Pengilly’s question about the 212 blood bags, supposedly belonging to cheating athletes, that were ordered destroyed by a Spanish judge in Operación Puerto.

"The sentence was appealed by the justice department so the bags have not been destroyed. While Pengilly asked about 'the destruction' (of the bags), nobody came up with the idea of telling him they have not actually been destroyed yet."

Government-supporting ABC newspaper provided its own guide as to why the bid failed, citing six main reasons.

"High budgets; the IOC has gone for the most expensive bid. An aggressive lobby from Tokyo, to the point where they have gone to the houses of IOC members to explain their bid. The support for a Paris bid in 2024. A draw in the first round that left Tokyo supporters voting for Istanbul. Fear of the economic crisis despite the guarantees given by the government,’’ and finally, "the IOC do not love us."

Secretary of State for Sport Miguel Cardenal gave his own version of events to El Pais on Wednesday, claiming the main role of leading the bid "this time was down to the Spanish Olympic Committee," as opposed to previous failed bids for the 2012 and 2016 Games when the opposition party were in government.

He went on to declare, "It was not worth pulling out. By a calculation of probability, we could have won and, if only for that percentage, it was worth fighting for. But it is true that those possibilities were not as high as those that had been transmitted to the Spanish people."

Written in Madrid by Dermot Ledwith.

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