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| |  Friday, 13 July, 2001, 18:33 GMT 19:33 UK Losers in the bidding war Toronto: "Beijing put together an impressive campaign" BBC Sport Online looks at the reaction from the losers in the battle to host the 2008 Olympics. The end of every Olympic bidding campaign inevitably leads to a good deal of disappointment for the bids thwarted at the final hurdle by the decisive IOC vote. While the champagne is being uncorked in Beijing, reality will be starting to set in for the unsuccessful cities of Toronto, Paris, Osaka and Istanbul after a long, hard and fruitless campaign. Beijing gained 44 votes in the first round, followed by Toronto (20), Istanbul (17), Paris (15) and Osaka (6). After Osaka had been eliminated Beijing gathered 56 with Toronto winning 22, Paris 18 and Istanbul nine. Toronto officials had been openly optimistic about their chances of pulling off an upset before Friday's vote. However, Toronto bid chief John Bitove conceded Beijing put together an impressive campaign.
I'm not completely surprised (by the vote), when I saw their final presentation I got worried," admitted Bitove. "They had a compelling argument, the world's biggest country should have the Games. "Beijing established why having the Games was so important to them, their presentation today pushed all the right buttons. Lessons learned "They made the point that one vote, would make history. "They played a much stronger emotional card and get 10 out of 10 for presentation. They did a very good job, we were up against a formidable opponent. "I don't think we did anything wrong. It was going to be a tough fight and we always knew it." Paris delegates admitted they would have to learn the lessons from their failed bid in which the French finished third behind Beijing and Toronto.
Serandour said: "We were beaten and we have to accept this defeat as such. There can be no talk of exacting revenging or finding out who abandoned us. "We will now see if there can be a new bid from France and learn the lessons of this experience. "The (IOC) evaluation commission said we had a top quality bid. There's a discrepancy between the number of votes we got and the quality of our presentation. "But IOC members have no need of guidance. It is clear that China has won the Games as the largest country in the world. I'm sure they will organise good Games and I wish them good luck." Turkish delight Turkish International Olympic Committee (IOC) member Sinan Erdem said: "We will bid next time and again until we finally get the Games." Despite losing, Istanbul delegates were clearly delighted at a relatively good showing in which they picked up 17 votes in the third round, placing a surprise third ahead of Paris.
"Istanbul's bid was excellent in my opinion but this time everything was prepared for Beijing so not only we, but other cities, had no chance," Erdem said. "I'm not happy not to get the Games but I'm happy to get more votes than Paris in the first round. "It's a big success for us. The big mistake by the IOC which I always opposed was to ban visits to the cities (by members) because there are well known cities in the world and there are others. "There are more than 50 million people visiting Paris every year but only two or three million visit Istanbul." Support Osaka's effort failed to recover from a damaging report by the IOC's evaluation committee. Osaka's bid committee stressed the quality of its sporting venues and tried to dismiss the financial fears as misunderstandings, seemingly to no avail. "We regret very much that Osaka was not able to live up to the expectations of all those who have been working with us in promoting our bid, as well as of the citizens who have given so much support," the bid committee said. "It was unexpected to finish last, but when Mayor (Takafumi) Isomura gets back on Sunday we'll discuss the possibility of bidding for the Games again," Osaka's vice-mayor Toshio Dozaki told reporters. "Osaka is aiming to be an international city which can welcome visitors from all over the world. For that reason, we definitely want to get the Games eventually," he added. | |
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