Spin Games for the 2014 Winter Olympics
Tuesday, April 24, 2007; 8:38 PM
BEIJING -- The world's biggest sports convention is taking place in the city that will host the 2008 Summer Olympics fewer than 500 days from now. The spotlight, though, is on a Winter Games still seven years away.
The three candidates for the 2014 Winter Olympics are lobbying intensely in Beijing this week at the last major international sports gathering before the IOC selects the host city on July 4 in Guatemala City.
  International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge delivers a speech during the opening ceremony of the SportAccord international sports convention Tuesday, April 24, 2007 in Beijing, the host city of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Delegations from the three candidate cities for the 2014 Winter Olympics get a crucial chance to pitch their case at the SportAccord conference, which coincides with a two-day International Olympic Committee executive board meeting beginning Wednesday. (AP Photo/Kenichi Murakami, Pool) (Kenichi Murakami - AP) |
"Hopefully those (IOC members) who haven't made up their minds yet can make some choices here," said Russian sports chief Vyacheslav Fetisov, the former Soviet and NHL hockey great who is a leader of Sochi's 2014 bid.
Sochi, a resort on Russia's Black Sea coast, is competing against Pyeongchang, South Korea, and Salzburg, Austria, in what has been a relatively low-key campaign compared to the glamorous race for the 2012 Summer Games, won by London in 2005.
Top-level delegations from the three 2014 cities get a crucial chance to pitch their case at the SportAccord conference, which coincides with a two-day International Olympic Committee executive board meeting beginning Wednesday.
The IOC agenda includes the investigation into the Austrian doping scandal at last year's Turin Winter Games, proposals for a youth Olympics starting in 2010 and the politically sensitive torch relay route for the Beijing Games.
But the 2014 race is the most visible issue at stake in the lobby, hallways and bars of the convention hotel. On Tuesday, clusters of bid city leaders, lobbyists and PR advisers huddled in strategy sessions and buttonholed IOC members, international sports federation officials and various delegates.
"It's our only chance to present our bid to a big number of IOC members," said Franz Klammer, the 1976 Olympic downhill gold medalist who is a top official in Salzburg's candidacy. "It's very important for us to be here and get all the contacts and information and feedback."
About 1,400 people are accredited for the convention, including 40 or so IOC members and heads of all 35 Olympic sports federations and dozens of non-Olympic sports bodies.
On Wednesday, the bid cities will make 15-minute formal presentations to the conference in what amounts to a dress rehearsal for the IOC session in Guatemala.
"It is a very important opportunity for Pyeongchang to campaign for our bid and seize the initiative in the 2014 race," said Kim Jin-sun, governor of South Korea's Gangwon province. "The race is neck and neck. A lot of people haven't been to Pyeongchang and we want to make them aware of all we have to offer."
In a sign of the rising tensions in the 2014 campaign, rivals took issue with a large Pyeongchang 2014 billboard installed outside the entrance to the hotel, suggesting it violated or bent IOC rules limiting promotional signs and posters. The billboard stayed up, but the Olympic rings were removed to stay within the guidelines.
