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Column: New York didn't need the Olympics

Published Thursday, July 07, 2005


In the category of things difficult to imagine, New York playing host to an Olympiad ranked up there with Sylvester Stallone hoisting an Oscar.

Can you imagine a global onslaught of fan-tourists, athletes and media funneling en masse into the already thick, chaotic jam of the city? Apparently the International Olympic Committee couldn't, either. The only more densely populated areas than Manhattan and Queens are called ant colonies.

The idea of wedging a school of grouper into a packed sardine tin surely is why NYC's Olympic bid had the poorest public support of any of five finalist cities -- and why New Yorkers aren't nearly as verklempt about Wednesday's announcement as defeated New York politicos.

You might have heard London edged Paris for the 2012 Games in the long-awaited vote. Meaning we can officially rule out that the IOC criteria included cuisine.

Madrid bested a humbled New York for third, with Moscow the caboose.

Normally something occurring seven years hence does not merit commentary. For the Olympics we make an exception, since it is (still) the grandest worldwide stage in sports, and since the jockeying to hold these next-available Summer Games marked the most heated bidding ever among unusually glamorous finalists -- including the historic, first Olympic attempt by the self-named "capital of the world," New York.

The once-flagging Olympic movement has regenerated in its symbolic importance since terrorism moved onto Earth's glowing front burner. Increasingly we find small comfort, large meaning and desperate hope in our common bonds, and love of sport seems one of the last international languages left.

Ironically it was New York City's unique place in the context of terrorism that might have helped weaken the city's bid. It wasn't the prospect of inviting another attack; it was the uneasy notion New York sought to use Sept. 11, 2001, as its king in the Olympic chess game.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg seemed to miscalculate in piggybacking the NYC bid onto 9/11 by saying that holding the Games would be the crescendo of the city's near-four-year recovery from the attacks on the twin towers.

He said his city "needs these Games." He was wrong.

New York City's remarkable rebound from terror stands valiantly on its own and hardly requires the arrival of Spanish fencers and Kenyan marathoners to validate it. Perhaps only in the context of the wicked punch that staggered but couldn't beat New York does even the Olympics seem trivial.

Some voters, though, might have interpreted Bloomberg's strategy as a veiled suggestion that a vote for New York was a vote against terrorism. The IOC would neither be bullied nor emotionally played.

Say what you will about the IOC. The monolith has earned derision for past sins. including audacious bribery and graft from a bid process that makes the civic jockeying for a Super Bowl seem like penny ante stuff.

The very process of awarding Olympiads has become overblown on a global scale, ludicrously turning presidents and kings into vote-groveling lobbyists. There was an interesting juxtaposition Wednesday, Britain prime minister Tony Blair receiving the good news in Scotland where he is playing host to the G8 Summit: against a backdrop of world hunger, high-fives for untold millions spent to woo an Olympiad.

Wednesday's vote at least was a sort of declaration of independence. It took nerve for the IOC to bypass Paris, the odds-on betting favorite, and New York, always the favorite in its own mind.

Think of the Olympics as hosted by countries, not cities, and you would be hard-pressed to think they made a bad decision Wednesday.

The United States has played host to eight combined Summer and Winter Games, the most ever. We have had four just since 1980, including Atlanta in 1996 and Salt Lake City in '02. Our inner-jingoist rooted for New York, but let's not get greedy.

France, likewise, has held five Olympiads, second-most, and as recently as Albertville in the winter of '92.

England, by contrast, will get to wear the five rings for the world for the first time since 1948, a 64-year gap.

Remember when "spreading the wealth" had come to conjure thoughts of pocketed bribes when it came to the IOC?

Wednesday it meant a country that had been an underdog and waited too long had reason to have faith again in the Olympics.

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