Game face at Garden
Despite a rift with Dolans over Stadium, NYC2012’s Doctoroff and others show IOC they can work together
BY JOHN JEANSONNE
STAFF WRITER
Strange bedfellows NYC2012 and Madison Square Garden yesterday combined to provide the lightest, most athletic moment during an International Olympic Committee scout team’s grinding, 11-hour inspection of the city’s proposed bid sites.
Following a late-afternoon venue presentation at the Garden, whose owners are embroiled in a nasty and public fight with the bid’s leaders over plans to build a West Side stadium, the IOC visitors were invited onto the floor of the “world’s most famous arena “to play a little hoops.
Bid hosts and their partners from the U.S. Olympic Committee, along with a handful of former Olympians appearing on NYC2012’s behalf, joined in for some casual shooting practice and 1984 gymnastics gold medalist Bart Conner noted that Peter Ueberroth and Jim Scherr, the two highest ranking officers of the USOC, “were pretty good.
“And Bradley was, too, although I did catch one of his air balls, “Conner said of the NYC2012 Garden greeter Bill Bradley, who for 10 years was a dead-eye Knicks scorer before becoming a U.S. Senator and 2000 Presidential candidate.
Conner also revealed that Nawal El Moutawakel, the IOC group’s 5-2, multilingual Moroccan chairwoman who was Olympic hurdles champion in 1984, “just stood in the corner and spoke French with my wife “– Nadia Comaneci.
Still, the carefree, unguarded fun was in sharp contrast to the top-secret proceedings of the scouts’ four-day visit, which concludes tomorrow, and the recent months of bitter — and increasingly personal — criticisms traded by key entities in the 2012 Olympic plan.
Efforts by Garden owner James Dolan to block the West Side stadium, so strongly backed by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his deputy, NYC2012 founder Dan Doctoroff, have become so sharp as to raise questions about the Garden’s prominent inclusion in the Olympic blueprint.
Doctoroff showed his annoyance with the Garden and its parent company, Cablevision, on the eve of the IOC team’s visit, saying his organization “has had to deal with millions and millions of dollars in negative, false advertising. “Still, the bid designates Madison Square Garden as the Olympic basketball venue for the 2012 Summer Games. And, even as the insults continue to fly, Doctoroff insisted his group has maintained “a very cooperative relationship with the Garden.
Yesterday’s Garden segment of the tour “could not have been warmer, or more fun, “Doctoroff said. “Despite the fact that we clearly have our disagreements about the MTA rail yards [where NYC2012 and the Jets propose to place a stadium], with respect to Madison Square Garden as a venue for the Olympic Games, they have been great partners.”
When Cablevision threw up its largest stadium roadblock earlier this month by raising the ante on the rail yards price, prompting the MTA to open the bidding after a year of negotiating only with the Jets, the timing clearly played havoc with promises NYC2012 wanted to offer the IOC team.
Still, during a lunchtime meeting with the evaluation team overlooking the rail yards site yesterday, NYC2012 executive director Jay Kriegel said that both Bloomberg and Gov. George Pataki “expressed their confidence that [stadium approval] will happen before the IOC makes its decision.”
Furthermore, there will be no repercussions with the Garden’s Olympic participation, Kriegel insisted. Kriegel yesterday gushed over the arena’s mystique. He pointed to a “long relationship with the Garden “in the bid process, which has been in the works for almost eight years and began to build steam in 2001, about the time NYC2012 worked with the Garden to bring the world wrestling championships to the arena that year.
The terrorists attacks of Sept. 11 cancelled the event, but NYC2012 and the Garden partnered to revive it two years later, “an exciting and emotional experience, “Kriegel said. Yesterday, Kriegel said, Garden vice president Joel Fisher pitched the arena’s Olympic capabilities to the IOC group, calling Fisher “our partner in every activity we’ve done with the Garden; we’ve built a fabulous relationship, both professionally and personally.”
Two of the NYC2012 slogans, hung on gigantic billboards and streetlight banners around the city, seemed to be coming true already: “Peace is the Dream. “And, “There’s Room for Everyone.”
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