Return to Transcripts main page
CNN Live At Daybreak
Surfing Into Saturday: Olympic Candidates Promote Cities Online
Aired July 13, 2001 - 08:48 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: Right now, we're going to "Surf Into Saturday" with Allison Tom here. And of course, some major city is going to be surfing in with the bid for the summer Olympics in 2008.
ALLISON TOM, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. We've said that, on the Web, it has really been the biggest promotional place for these cities to make their names known. They've really had a lot of the information on the Internet for people, for users just to go and see what kind of information it is and what the city offers them.
So, we have the three front-runners here on our site. Beijing 2000 is the first one that we're going to show you. They have a lot of different fun downloads for people to use. I think they really want people to get to know their city by the fun offerings they have on their Web site. They have a lot of video clips just highlighting parts of the city and join the culture and people. They also have greeting cards, as we scroll down here, that you can send to friends and family right now ...
LIN: Oh, how cute.
TOM: ... just to kind of get the word out there. And again, this is all a promotional way for them to get their city and their name out there. And lastly, you can also do desktop downloads on your computer so you can have this available on your screen.
They do have here the candidate city. This is kind of a neat, interactive role map that they have to highlight different parts of their new Beijing, the great, great Olympic city that they hope to promote.
LIN: And they're calling it New Beijing as in don't believe the political propaganda.
TOM: Exactly, that's the biggest controversy surrounding Beijing right now.
So the other one, too, here is the Toronto 2008. They have -- you know, of course, they're promoting themselves as the clean and the safe city to be going to. They have some interesting 360-degree iPIX images and what these do is with Quick Time video on your computer, you can see all the different colorful pictures here. And it will highlight some of the different cities that are available -- or the different spots that are available to highlight the Olympics.
LIN: More than just the photo of it, right?
TOM: Exactly. And this is what is really fun because with your computer, you can point and click to see the realistic 360-degree perspective of all of these different locations that they have.
And here's one other that we'll show you too, just to give you the whole full picture of what the candidate is trying to offer.
LIN: Yes, that's nice.
TOM: And here, we also will have OUi Paris. They have their 2008 special site as well. They have a lot of the information showing where they hope to have the venues, exactly where they'll lay it out. They have a map here detailing all the specific spots. And for instance, we have the -- I think it was the Eiffel Tower where they're hoping to have and they're proposing to have the beach volleyball. So, it could be an interesting spot for that.
LIN: Great location, right in the middle of the city.
TOM: That's right. And let me pull up some other things. The IOC is a good place to go to for just the background and the history of Olympics. They have some interesting information here. They have permanent exhibitions. It's a virtual tour where people can peruse to just find all of the information about, you know, any of the games. They also have, like, the first Olympic games, which I won't scroll down to because it's a little bit slow here. But they have -- like, for instance, Athens has hosted -- is one of the first for the summer games.
And lastly, we'll just show you -- we're still scrolling on our thing here. But if you go to CNN.com, we have a special future hosting all of the Olympics that's available. And individuals can come here and cast their own vote in our quick vote to see who they think should -- which city should win, to host this major, international event.
LIN: Gallup found that most Americans want Toronto but -- perhaps because it's most familiar and closest to us.
TOM: That's right.
LIN: So we'll get somebody else's vote. Now, what if you want to buy a piece of Olympic history? Is there a place to go?
TOM: Well, there -- we did actually find -- and let me just try to pull it up here. This site is Olympian Artifacts. They have some very interesting, little tidbits that you can look at. We found that there are some photos. Here's just kind of a listing. They have badges that you can buy, decals, you know, drinking glasses and mugs. You can start buying into that. And then lastly, they have here, which we found -- the prices are a little bit cheap so I don't know the value of this per se.
LIN: Are they authentic, though?
TOM: We're not sure about that though because I'm a little weary about the prices. But it's something to look at.
They do have trading cards from former gold-medalists and from some other Olympians in the past. So, they do offer a lot of different options for people to go here to buy a part of the Olympics.
LIN: At least, it makes a good story.
TOM: It does.
LIN: All right, thanks so much, Allison Tom. We'll be "Surfing Into Saturday" with lots of information like that.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com
