Toronto loses 2008 Olympic Summer Games bid (CBC)

Broadcast Date: July 13, 2001

After a week of furious lobbying and mounting optimism in Moscow, Toronto 2008 bid committee members are delivered a crushing blow. International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch announces the games will go to Beijing, China. It's a controversial decision: China is a vast, untapped sports market, but has a questionable record on human rights. As we see in this clip, Toronto is now zero for two in Olympic bidding and the team's mood isn't good.

In the second part of this clip, Patrick Brown witnesses a much different mood in Beijing, where people pour into the streets in a way not seen since the disastrous 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square. The parallel is not lost on Olympic observers, who speculate about the way the Communist government will respond to the victory and the international scrutiny that accompanies it.


Video credit: CBC
No copyright infringement intended

Category:

Sports

Tags:

• toronto
• 2008
• olympic
• summer
• games
• bid
• canada
• lost
• ioc
• international
• committee
• juan
• antonio
• sammaranch
• beijing
• china
• ontario

[lexlib]

and china hasn't changed from 2001-2010. yeah, sure they're an economic super power, but their stance on human rights still remains unchanged.

[vancouverite1989]

@lexlib

That's the thing, the IOC thought they could change China for the greater good (human rights and all). Of course, it never materialized.

[Fibr3Optix]

Beijing won because they were robbed hosting years earlier due to an Olympic bribe scandal. If it wasn't for that Toronto would have won the games.

In a show of "Sorry Canada" The IOC gave the winter games to Vancouver.

[HelloWorld492]

@Fibr3Optix but the 2010 olympics were epic

[vancouverite1989]

@HelloWorld492

The Summer Olympics may have their greater glory and pageantry over the Winter Olympics, but I guarantee you Canadians won't be anywhere as pumped for a Toronto Olympics than a Winter Olympics where you've got sports we're interested in (and also good in)...above all, hockey!

[vancouverite1989]

@Fibr3Optix

Or how about the fact that Vancouver won on its own merit as well? The fact that a well-known metropolitan city of 2.3-million people was going up against a South Korean resort of just 50,000 and Salzburg, Austria with 150,000.

Beijing was not robbed, there was no scandal for the 1996 Olympics which went to Atlanta. You are referring to Salt Lake 2002, Winter Games. Beijing's previous bid was for 2000, meaning the host city was chosen in 1993...Tiananmen massacre was in 1989.

[vancouverite1989]

Then IOC President Juan Sammaranch pressured his colleagues to elect Beijing as the host city, thinking it could change China for the greater good. This happened in July 2001...the SARS crisis didn't happen until 2003. SARS came and went, five years later it obviously didn't affect the 2008 Games.

[password45671]

@vancouverite1989 Toronto > Vancouver

[cocochanelbabe]

i live in toronto, how could we possibly host the olympic games? we can barely fix the potholes on our streets.

[cheeriosinabowl]

As a Torontonian, I am glad we lost the Olympic bids for 2008 and 1996.

We can't even repair our horrible roads which are everywhere in the city.  Our subways are dirty. Speaking of subways, they're antiquated, noisy sardine cans. The city's tranportation system has not been updated and modernized in years! Just a few points here ..... also, the city is overly congested.

Screw the Olympics! Keep them out of TO.

[LordDavid04]

@scorpioninpink Should have but didn't. The IOC was clearly swayed by both Putin's stirring speech and more importantly the unique bid plan.

[LordDavid04]

@scorpioninpink Pyeongchang got 2018 as a compromise (with a little nagging). Clearly the IOC was impressed with Sochi's plan (during the Candidate stage, as this was different from their Applicant stage). After all, this wasn't really Sochi's first bid (they bid for 2002 and 1998 I believe, not becoming candidates, possibly just filing in their applications to the IOC). One should also note that Russia is a powerhouse in the Olympics, they were bound to get the games in time.

[scorpioninpink]

@LordDavid04 but pyeongchang should have gotten the 2014 olympics... too bad, putin is so intimidating that even some members of the IOC was pressured on giving it to sochi... but no worries, pyeongchang got 2018...

[Herb615]

maybe next time Toronto :)

[LordDavid04]

@catrachocolo Salzburg is in Austria. But it relied on Konigsee, located in Germany for it's 2010 and 2014 bids.

[catrachocolo]

@LordDavid04 Since when is Salzburg in Germany?

[LordDavid04]

@WDI2008 What, and the likes of Beijing didn't bribe their way to try and get 2000? I'm sure they must have done something, why Sydney offered free air travel for the games and eventually all bidding cities matched that. So what if you add a further $70,000 on top of the millions proposed in air travel expenses?

2 IOC members bribed pales in comparison to the odd 90 or so voting. What would have happened if the 2 bribed members didn't get the games for Sydney? What then?