Win or Lose, Houston's 2012 Committee is Amazing

This is just incredible to me. This reminds me of McNair and his pursuit of the Texans when everybody guaranteed LA would get the team. The 2012 Foundation members are like bulldogs!

<i>IAAF gives 2012 bid helping hand
By DAVID BARRON
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle

With only a few days left until the U.S. Olympic Committee cuts the field of 2012 Olympics bid candidates from four to two, Houston's plan to hold track and field events indoors has won a potentially critical endorsement from the head of the sport's governing body.

Lamine Diack, president of the International Association of Athletics Federations, sent a letter this week to former Houston City Councilman John Kelley endorsing the conversion of the Reliant Astrodome into the world's first enclosed, full-scale track venue.

"IAAF applauds the Houston, Texas (USA) concept of a 400-(meter) controlled temperature stadium, meeting all IAAF specifications in track and field," Diack wrote. "The IAAF endorses and blesses the concept for the future of our sport worldwide."

Diack's letter was forwarded to the USOC on Tuesday, the final day to submit evidence or information in support of Houston's bid to become the U.S. candidate city for the 2012 Summer Games.

The USOC's 2012 site selection team meets Tuesday in Chicago to cut the field of four candidate cities to two, to be followed by a final vote by the USOC board of directors in November.

New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., remain in the running along with Houston.

As part of its bid, the Houston 2012 Foundation hopes to convert the Astrodome for full-time use as a track and field facility. The conversion would cost an estimated $90 million and also would make Houston a prime candidate to host the world track and field championships, which have never been staged in the United States.

Kelley, in his role as president of the Houston International Sports Committee, received Diack's endorsement for the Astrodome conversion plan earlier this month during a meeting in Zurich, Switzerland.

"We are offering the USOC a legacy for track and field -- a controlled-temperature stadium that can host events at any time," Kelley said Wednesday. "Not only would they be getting this for the Olympic Games, but it would practically guarantee the world track and field championships for the U.S. for the first time.

"People all over the world are talking now about Houston and about this revolutionary concept and how someday there could be one of these enclosed stadiums on every continent."

Although Kelley is founder of the Houston 2012 Foundation, his visit to Zurich was arranged through the sports committee, which is charged with the task of attracting athletic competitions to the city.

"Getting the world championships for Houston is one of John's ultimate goals," said foundation president Susan Bandy.

But she said Kelley's visit, which was arranged in part with assistance from 2000 Olympic track and field coach John Chaplin, also is a significant development in Houston's pursuit of the Olympic bid.

Chaplin is one of the few Olympic track coaches who have not signed letters in support of the San Francisco bid.

"I don't think anybody will be swayed by having a bunch of coaches writing letters, especially since we have many of them on film talking about what an incredible concept the Astrodome is," Bandy said.

"Things like this (Diack's letter) are a lot more powerful, because this comes from the group that will have to put on the event."

In the past, Diack has been critical of the inability of countries such as the United States and Great Britain to host major international track and field events.

"American athletics is still central to our thinking," Diack said last year in an interview with the Daily Telegraph of London.

"But I have told them, `You are just like Africa; you don't have television coverage, no sponsorship of consequence but fantastic athletes.' "</i>

 

The aquatic facilities would have to be built. There is some debate over whether it would be built on the UH campus or a little further out - maybe out 290 or 288.

Everything I've heard, however, is that they are planning a joint aquatics facility to serve both the UH and TSU campuses.

 

Houston already has a plan for Metro for 2020, but the rail is one of the first components. It is pretty much a given that light rail would be targeted and really sped up if we got the US bid, nevermind the world bid.

 

You pretty much nailed it. I have had the good fortune of getting to speak to people who work around the Houston 2012 Foundation and the consensus is that Houston has the best bid pretty much hands down. The number and quality of venues, the proximity of the venues to one another and the level of support from the community exceeds all the other entrants.

The big problem is the image issue. To many people outside of the US, Houston is a representation of many of America's bad qualities - congestion, smog, poor public transportation, etc.

There is even some concern that Houston would not pose a particularly attractive opponent against European cities in particular because President Bush is from Texas and he is not well-liked throughout Europe and much of Asia (I heard that one from a conservative Republican in fact). There was even talk that the fact that Harris County accounts for more executions than any other STATE in the US could present some problems with human rights groups - of course, that didn't stop China from getting the games either.

Our success is in our work ethic and our attention to detail. If we fail, it will be because our image around the world just isn't that great. However, if we land the US bid (and I still think there is a very good chance that could happen), Houston's image (along with a number of other things) will receive a dramatic boost because the entire USOC will be promoting us across the globe. This is a big deal.