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| Anillo Olímpico |
| Courtesy Madrid Convention
Bureau |
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| Felipe II Sports Palace |
| Courtesy Madrid Convention
Bureau |
Athens in 2004, Beijing in 2008. The Madrid Olympics
in the summer of 2012? Madrilenos are holding their
collective breath. They are also putting a great
deal of effort, investment and energy into making
the Spanish capital the irresistible contender to
host the games.
Madrid is competing against eight other major cities,
including London, Paris, New York and Havana, and
the long, drawn-out bidding process, which is both
costly and competitive, ends on July 6, 2005, when
the Olympic Committee announces its final choice
in Singapore.
Mayor Gallardon has made no secret of his desire
to bring the games to Madrid. He has been quoted
as saying that Paris, and particularly London, only
decided to step into the fray because Madrid had
already done so. His election manifesto committed
millions of euros for infrastructure, and he is
well on the way to fulfilling his promise to have
90 percent of the planned new venus completed by
2006.
The fact that Barcelona successfully staged the
summer games as recently as 1992 is considered both
detrimental and helpful to Madrid's case. It shows
Spain is capable of doing a good job, but at the
same time the Olympic Selection Committee may consider
it too soon for Spain to repeat the performance,
even in another town.
Gallardon has an answer to that. "Ours is
a legitimate aspiration," he states. "Madrid
is the only major capital in Europe which has never
hosted the games. It's an opportunity to show that
the city has undergone an important transformation
in the past decade."
The nightmare of a terrorist attack doesn't seem
to have discouraged any of the nine contenders,
Madrid included. In Spain, the potential danger
from terrorism is both home-grown in the shape of
the Basque ETA separatists and the international
variety. But Gallardon confidently argues that Madrid
has experience hosting big international meetings.
"The (1991) Middle East Peace Conference, and
more recently the Iraq Donors Conference have shown
that we can guarantee the security of our visitors,"
he says.
The question remains: Is it worth all the effort?
Madrid sources will not put a cost figure on its
bid -- at least not yet. But Sydney in 2000 spent
$3.4 billion on the Olympics (100 percent over its
original budget) while Athens 2004 will cost no
less than $11.25 billion.
The games stimulate, justify and speed up local
development. Barcelona estimated that within eight
years, it had built infrastructure that would normally
have taken 50 years. Still, Spanish sources say
Madrid starts with the advantage of having more
facilities already in place. The city has the largest
infrastructure in Europe for amateur sports: There
are 46 sports centers within the city with facilities
for over 70 different sports. In addition, a new
state-of-the-art Palace of Sports is under construction
as well as a new, 850,000-square-meter (210-acre)
Olympic Village that can accommodate 17,500.
Gallardon feels he has a strong selling point in
the fact that most of the sporting facilities are
close together, avoiding the endless travel time
that competitors and public have had to endure in
some games. Almost all the main sites, including
the planned Olympic Village, will be ringed by a
60-kilometer (37-mile) bicycle path now also being
built.
If Madrid gets the nod, Gallardon says, "These
will be the first Olympics in which private cars
will not be required at all."
One of the completed major projects is an extension
to Madrid's Barajas International Airport, which
is due to go into operation later this month, plus
two new runways, almost doubling its capacity from
the 36 million passengers handled last year.
But the reality is that there's no sure fire guarantee
the games will generate a profit. The 1984 Los Angeles
Olympics made $200 million, but Atlanta was far
less successful in 1996; Barcelona and Seoul both
did well, but the tax-payers of Montreal are still
paying for the $1 billion loss of the 1976 games.
The Sydney Olympics were possibly the best organized
and most exciting in memory, but the cash picture
was far from bright.
And that's the point. The games have a mixed record
of financial gain, but guarantee worldwide attention.
It's the latter that makes them attractive to Madrid
where the Olympic Games are seen as a golden opportunity
to boost the city's international standing. Competing
with London and Paris already puts Madrid on the
same plane with the two great capitals of Europe.
Winning the bid would be a triumph for Madrid --
and for Gallardon -- that no amount of money can
buy.
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