Chicago's Olympic group looks, listens
games of 2016 | Daley keys delegation visiting Pan American Games, meeting IOC officials
Mitt Romney rescued the scandal-plagued 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, Peter Ueberroth ran the profitable Olympics in Los Angeles in 1984 and is chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and Billy Payne helped Atlanta win the 1996 Summer Games over Athens, Greece, the birthplace of the Olympics.
Each recently talked to the Associated Press about what Chicago should do to win its first Olympics and then host a successful Games. Their advice was simple: Make friends on the International Olympic Committee. Train lots of volunteers. And don't do it for the money.
''I hope people don't think it's a big moneymaker and a source of economic development and good for business because that's not what the Olympics is about,'' said Romney, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination. ''The Olympics is about an opportunity to serve the world and to welcome the world.''
Since Chicago is new to the Olympic selection process, city organizers can use all the advice they can get.
Ueberroth's USOC is guiding Chicago, and the group already has reached out to leaders of the 2012 London Olympics and the Athens and Barcelona games, said Patrick Sandusky, a spokesman for the Chicago 2016 organizing committee. Romney met with Daley during a campaign visit to Chicago in April.
The road to hosting the Games begins with getting to know people in the international sporting world and on the International Olympic Committee, something Payne said was necessary for Atlanta because the Southern city was not well-known outside the U.S.
While Chicago enjoys some measure of international recognition, the city still is largely known for its legendary past of gangsters and slaughterhouses.
''It occurred to us early on that coming out of the blue as we did virtually unknown ... that the best way that we could compete would be to secure the trust and the friendship of the respective [IOC] members and hoping in the process to convince them that we would be great custodians of this wonderful gift which they give every four years,'' Payne said.
For Chicago, that means hosting international sports competitions and attending major events. This week, Mayor Daley and a small delegation of the city's Olympic organizers are at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro -- a chief rival of Chicago for the 2016 Olympics -- where they will attend the opening ceremonies and watch events.
About 5,500 athletes from 42 countries are expected to attend the Olympic-style Pan Ams, which began Saturday and run through July 29.
For Daley, it's another chance to interact with IOC members, whose contact with bid cities has been limited by Olympic rules since the Salt Lake City bribery scandal. A few days before he left for Brazil, Daley said he would talk up Chicago, its history and its diversity by touting ''how great the people are, first and foremost.''
''This city is a, really a secret throughout the world,'' he said.
Ueberroth said the high-profile Daley -- whom he described as ''shake your hand, make a promise, keep a promise'' -- is key to the city's efforts to build trust among the IOC members and eventually win the 60 votes it takes to get the Games.
''They basically will vote for the people that they trust and that they know that are going to stay the course,'' Ueberroth said.
Other cities competing for the 2016 Games so far besides Chicago and Rio de janeiro are Doha, Qatar; Madrid, Spain; Tokyo, and Baku, Azerbaijan. The IOC will pick a host city in 2009.
But a recent controversy before the start of the Pan Ams could leave Chicago trying to erase negative stereotypes about Americans -- perhaps by playing up its humble Midwestern roots.
A USOC worker last week scrawled the message ''Welcome to the Congo!'' on a board in the organization's media center. The greeting, reportedly in reference to warm temperatures, was blasted by Brazilians, who don't like their country compared to less-developed places and who often view Americans as arrogant.
The USOC apologized, and Sandusky said the Chicago delegation in Brazil was conscious of ''being humble and listening.''
Another issue Olympic host city hopefuls must address is whether they have the venues -- or enough money to build them.
Chicago lacks some of the major Olympic venues, including a $1 billion lakefront athletes' village and a $366 million temporary stadium. But major construction isn't a big hurdle for a developed city like Chicago as it fine-tunes its bid to the IOC, Payne said.
''I think that they would have confidence that the design, technological expertise that Chicago could bring to the task would be more than adequate to pull it off,'' Payne said.
Trouble over financing for a new stadium did complicate New York's bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics and the Games eventually were awarded to London.
Ueberroth said a trifecta of government, the private sector and the community must come together to make the Games work.
But no Olympic Games can happen without thousands of volunteers, and Romney, a millionaire businessman, said they should be treated like regular employees. Not everyone who applied to volunteer in Salt Lake City got spots, and those who did went through vigorous training, he said.
AP