Campus plays leading role in Bay Area bid for 2012 Olympic Games

BY JIA-RUI CHONG

Stanford has become the centerpiece of the plan for a San Francisco Summer Olympic Games in 2012 put forth by the Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee (BASOC). The Farm was the first stop for the Bid Evaluation Task Force of the U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) on July 14, as the team completed its final tour of the four candidate cities -- San Francisco, Houston, New York and Washington, D.C.

The two-day visit introduced the USOC site evaluation team to the revised bid, which moved several events from outlying areas such as Sacramento into a six-city "Ring of Gold." Stanford is one of the most visible hubs in the new, more compact layout. The Farm would now host swimming, diving and archery, in addition to the opening and closing ceremonies, track and field, softball, badminton and the modern pentathlon. (Water polo also was originally planned for Stanford, but moved to Santa Clara University in exchange for the higher-profile swimming and diving.)

"We wanted to create a real Olympic Pavilion environment, where people can walk from sport to sport and to public transportation," BASOC spokesperson Tony Winnicker said.

The cost to Stanford remains the same. BASOC would pay for touch-ups to the Sunken Diamond, Maples Pavilion, the Sand Hill athletic fields and Avery Aquatics Center, as well as for the construction of a temporary pool and stands for 15,000 on Elliot Field. (The Avery Center cannot seat enough spectators, so it would be the warm-up pool.) Stanford would have to raise half of the $300 million cost of major renovations to the football stadium, with BASOC covering the other half.

A spokesperson for the Department of Athletics said Stanford has long wanted to renovate the stadium, so the university would welcome a partner in the project. He added that the Athletics Department is prepared to do private fundraising to match the BASOC contribution.

The San Francisco bid says Stanford also would take the lead in designing the "Academic Olympiad," a four-year curriculum to examine all facets of the Olympic Games from the historical to the physiological. In this program -- which is unique to the Bay Area bid -- experts from local universities would lecture at their own institutions as well as travel to speak about the Olympics. National and international experts also would be invited to the Bay Area.

"When they [the USOC members] were here last August, they really liked the possibility of combining the principles of mind, body and spirit at facilities like Stanford and Berkeley. They thought we were underutilizing the universities," Winnicker said.

Don Chu, director of performance enhancement in the Department of Athletics, presented the Academic Olympiad plan to the USOC task force. He said he was confident Stanford could manage an international sporting event as well as provide thoughtful commentary on all aspects of the Games. "We've got a premier faculty, a great staff and that leadership capability to stand out in all fields to motivate and captivate the world," Chu said in a subsequent interview.

Chu's presentation was only one part of the USOC visit to Stanford, which lasted about two hours. Shuttled straight from San Jose International Airport, the task force was greeted at Kissick Auditorium by President John Hennessy and Athletics Director Ted Leland, who is on BASOC's board of directors. After watching a video about the proposed Olympic Village for athletes at Moffett Field in Mountain View, USOC officials were presented with endorsement letters from former and current Olympic coaches supporting the Bay Area bid by Richard Quick, head coach of women's swimming at Stanford. BASOC and Stanford officials then took the team on a short walking tour of the facilities and capped the afternoon atop Hoover Tower for a bird's-eye view of the proposed Olympic complex. A reception at the Rodin Sculpture Garden was canceled because the team arrived late, delayed by a storm in Houston.

Though the visit was short, Stanford seemed to help the Bay Area make a good impression. "The beauty of its campus and its reputation as one of the best universities in the world is a combination that is incredible and inspiring," Deedee Corradini, the site inspection team's vice chair, said at a wrap-up session on July 15.

At the same event, BASOC Chief Executive Officer Anne Warner Cribbs, '79, praised the critical input Stanford has provided since the bid process began in late 1998. "Stanford has a significant role in the Olympic Games in providing venues and helping to do the Academic Olympiad. They've also done wonderful outreach for the Olympic movement."

Cribbs, who swam as a member of the U.S. Gold Medal-winning 400-meter medley team in 1960, added that Stanford's facilities are "terrific" and an integral part of the BASOC strategy for wooing the USOC. The committee's main selling point is that San Francisco is the best site for athletes because of the area's temperate weather and its top-notch facilities that have served as training grounds for America's leading athletes. To help prove its point, BASOC has enlisted several prominent Olympians, including figure skater Kristi Yamaguchi and sprinter Michael Johnson, to speak on its behalf, and also organized "A Summer of World-Class Sport" in venues throughout the region this summer. The Modern Pentathlon World Championships at Stanford, which took place during the USOC visit, was one of those showcase events.

BASOC is also betting on its fiscally responsible budget, the area's cutting-edge technology (which can help keep participants as well as spectators on track) and an environmentally conservative building plan.

Whether the Bay Area sufficiently impressed the USOC task force will be known in the coming months. The USOC will narrow the field to two cities in September and announce the winner in November. The International Olympic Committee makes its decision in 2005.

Until the fall, the USOC task force intends to be as tight-lipped as Charles Moore, chair of the evaluation team, was at a press conference at the end of the Bay Area visit. Though pressed by the audience, he would not indicate which way the task force was leaning, except to say, "This is a fine bid. This even may be an exceptional bid."

• Bay Area Sports Organizing Committee