The folks up in Alaska aren`t necessarily mad as you know what, but they aren`t going to take their recent rejection as a host site for the 1992 Olympic Winter Games without a fight.
”As soon as we learned we weren`t going to get it, we started thinking about the next Olympiad and in that respect we got a real break,” explained Dave Baumeister, president of the Anchorage Organizing Committee.
”When the IOC decided to break the format and start a new Olympiad winter cycle in 1994, we felt that gave us an advantage because we were already geared up for `92. Two years instead of four doesn`t make any difference to us. We`re ready now.”
The Alaska committee is back to Square One in receiving U.S.O.C. sanctioning as an official candidate city. Baumeister`s group hopes to get that at the upcoming convention later this month in Reno, Nev.
Then, of course, he will go about the job of ”de-stigmatizing” Alaska.
There are three images we have to overcome–climate, it`s dark all the time here, and accessability,” he said.
”Well, the IOC members have all been here and they know the climate is perfect for the Winter Games. True, darkness might be a problem in the winter but that wouldn`t be a factor in March, when we`d probably have the Games.
”And as for accessability, well, we`re halfway between Europe and Asia.”
