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Los Angeles loses bid for 2018 Olympics
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-04-16 09:59
People in Los Angeles reacted with surprise and disappointment on Saturday when the city lose its bid to host its third Olympics in 2016.
The U.S. Olympics Commmitee (USOC) announced earlier on the day that it chose Chicago as the official U.S. candidate to host the 2016 Summer Games.
Expectant crowds who gathered at The Grove shopping center and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the announcement sighed with disappointment when Peter Ueberroth, head of the USOC, announced from Washington, D.C., that the Windy City got the nod.
"I am very proud to announce that the United States applicant city for 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games is, Chicago," said Ueberroth, who won praise for his management of the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984.
Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who had been in Washington with a contingent of local leaders and athletes to make a last-minute pitch to the USOC, was gracious in defeat.
"I feel strongly that we put our best foot forward and I am as proud of these members of the committee, proud of every effort we made in here and I wouldn't change a single thing," he said.
California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger released a statement thanking "everyone who worked so hard to make Los Angeles a first-class competitor in this bid for the 2016 Olympics."
"While today's decision is a disappointment, the city of Los Angeles will continue to shine bright with our diversity, physical beauty and weather that are unmatched anywhere in the world," he said.
The mayor and governor also congratulated Chicago on winning the bid.
"I am confident (Chicago) will do an outstanding job representing the U.S. and ultimately prevail in this competition," Schwarzenegger said.
The city and state agreed to underwrite the cost of the Olympics to the tune of 250 million dollars each, with 32 million dollars from the private sector.
An economic impact study released last month by Economics Research Associates predicted that bringing the Summer Olympics to Los Angeles in 2016 would boost the local economy by 7.2 billion dollars and create nearly 68,000 jobs.
"It's like losing the ability to marry the greatest person in the world," said city councilman Tom LaBonge. "The Olympic movement is one of the greatest of all movements in the world and we experienced it in 1932, we experienced it in 1984 and we hope to experience it in 2020."
Illinois native John Naber, a four-time 1976 gold medalist in swimming and a member of the Southern California Olympic Committee, said it was still too early to say whether the city will bid for the 2020 Olympics.
"An important part of the Olympics is sportsmanship, and that means we acknowledge their victory and then encourage them and wish them luck and great success," Naber said, adding that the committee would offer its support to Chicago.
"I was shocked because when you logically and logistically look at it, L.A. could have put on the Olympics tomorrow," said Cathy Bradford of Huntington Beach, a two-time Olympic kayaker and one of the vice presidents on the committee.
She noted that venues such as Pauley Pavillion at UCLA, and the Staples and Home Depot centers were already built and could accommodate the needs of the Olympians and spectators.
Chicago, which has never hosted an Olympics, has offered to build a 1.1 billion dollar Olympic village on the shores of Lake Michigan.
Naber said he "didn't see it coming."
"Our selling point was that because so many of our venues are already constructed that we would be allowed to devote the time and resources that other cities would spend building facilities, we'd allow ourselves to devote that time to putting on a better Olympics," he said.
"Chicago had the point of view that we've never had it before, it's going to be a brand new imagining of the games, and our games would be all tied together so we can walk from all venues," Naber said, acknowledging Los Angeles is a "little bit more spread out."
The fact that Los Angeles has hosted two Olympics -- in 1932 and in 1984 -- may have hurt the city's bid, although the success of those games are held as a gold standard at a time when many other cities have gone into deep debt by hosting an Olympics.
The U.S. Olympic Committee did not disclose the reason for its choice.
When Ueberroth ran the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in 1984, the games had a surplus of about 250 million dollars that established a fund that still supports youth sports programs in the city.
To have gotten the Olympics a third time would not have been unprecedented -- London, which has hosted the Olympics in 1920 and 1948, will host its third Olympics in the summer of 2012.
Chicago will compete internationally against Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Madrid, Prague and Tokyo to host the 2016 Summer Olympics.
In Chicago, mayor Richard Daley said a lot of emotion was wrapped up in the city's bid.
"It was a very, very long wait," he said.
Chicago, long the nation's second biggest city until Los Angeles surpassed it in the 1980s, has hosted two World Fairs but has never hosted an Olympics.
The International Olympic Committee will choose the host city in October, 2009 at its meeting in Copenhagen.
The last American city to host the summer Olympics was Atlanta in 1996. Beijing will host the 2008 Summer Games.
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