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CNN Live At Daybreak

Toronto Hopeful It Will Host Summer Olympics in 2008

Aired July 12, 2001 - 08:22   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: For an event that's seven years down the road, the 2008 Olympic Games are sure attracting a lot of attention, because the announcement of the host site comes tomorrow.

LINDA STOUFFER, CNN ANCHOR: So far, we have profiled two of the top three contenders -- Beijing and Paris -- but today it is Toronto's turn.

CNN's Bill Delaney is on the waterfront today, with Toronto's story.

Hi there -- Bill.

BILL DELANEY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, thank you. Hi to you.

People here in Toronto and in Canada have been hearing what everybody else has been hearing for a long time now, that China is the front-runner for the 2008 Olympics. But optimism is very much on the rise here now, and Canadian Olympic officials believe it's now come down to a competition between them and China for the bid.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DELANEY (voice-over): Toronto, on Lake Ontario: sophisticated, First World -- while in the Olympic spirit of things, also as multiethnic as any place on Earth, more than half the 2.4 million population, immigrants, speaking more than 100 languages -- a mostly mild-mannered metropolis Canadian Olympic officials repeat like a mantra is 2008's risk-free choice.

JEFF EVENSON, TORONTO 2008 OLYMPIC BID: We're the bid of certainty. All of the transportation capacity is here. Certainly, the broadcast transmission. The air is good. The water is clean. None of these things will be there in eight years; it's all here in Toronto now.

DELANEY: Even 70 percent of Olympic venues are already built, along a compact 6 kilometers, 3.5 miles, of waterfront where the city had been renovating anyway -- good enough credentials for it to bother many Canadians that much more controversial Beijing is still apparent front-runner for the bid.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'll be shamed that the Olympic Committee would find that city the proper place to put the Olympics, because all the ridiculous human rights atrocities that are going on there.

DELANEY: Canadian officials, through, are wary of using as leverage human rights allegations, like more than 1,700 executions in China in just the last three months.

EVENSON: It's not the Canadian way to do things. We don't execute people in Canada. But we're in the business of sport.

DELANEY: And Canada does have problems of its own, like Toronto Mayor Mel Lastman, who apologized for saying, before a trip to Africa, he worried about dancing natives boiling him in a pot. And some Canadians do criticize spending an estimated $2 billion to stage an Olympics.

JAN BUROWY, BREAD NOT CIRCUSES COALITION: What's going to happen to low income earners? We know that tenants will be evicted, that boarding houses here in this neighborhood will be shut down and probably turned into bed and breakfasts.

DELANEY: Olympic officials say tourism, jobs, and prestige only benefit everyone.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

Toronto's mayor, Mel Lastman, is in Moscow, and he had met with an African delegation there about those controversial remarks of his, a senior member of that African delegation saying they want to put it all behind them. But certainly, the mayor's remarks haven't helped Toronto's bid. Nonetheless, as we say, there's tremendous optimism here, now in the waning hours of all this, that Toronto may yet get the bid for the 2008 Olympics.

Back to you -- Carol and Linda.

LIN: Thanks Bill. We'll see you tomorrow when that announcement is made.

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