The man who ran the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta says he’s stunned by how badly New York City has botched its quest to host the 2012 Games.
Civil-rights leader Andrew Young, the former Atlanta mayor, said the debate over the controversial West Side stadium turned the Big Apple’s 2012 bid into a sordid political saga instead of what should have been a “people power” movement.
He said, New York should have focused on galvanizing public support for hosting the Olympic games first rather than quibble over a specific stadium site.
“I hate the idea that New York lost the Olympics,” Young told The Post.
“New York is the most Olympic city in the world. But you’ve got to unleash that New York ‘people power,’ ” he said.
“I was disappointed it got bogged down in City Hall politics and where the stadium is going to go . . . They put the cart before the horse.
“When it takes on the element of political control, it almost defeats itself,” he said.
Mayor Bloomberg and New York Olympic organizers insisted they had to be site specific for a stadium under the rules.
Young felt so strongly about launching a grass-roots campaign for the Atlanta Games that he stepped down as mayor to chair the effort.
He said that helped make the campaign one of community pride and booster- ism rather than partisan politics. And he and his volunteers went through the city’s neighborhoods to earn public support.
He said backing came from “Junior League” moms as well as business leaders.
“You can’t afford a lot of negative publicity. The city has to be united behind it,” he said.
He called Atlanta an underdog to host the ’96 Games and said that just made residents more eager to support the campaign.
He said he wished New York had put a prominent figure in charge of the 2012 campaign – such as former Mayor David Dinkins.
Mayor Bloomberg had planned events with Dinkins to campaign for the among International Olympic Committee members in Africa.
Young also suggested that New York would be a sympathetic favorite among international voting members as the victim of the 9/11 terrorist attacks – and even said maybe there was still hope for consideration with a different stadium site.
Meanwhile, the Big Apple’s stumble is a gain in 2016 for American cities that New York edged out to represent the United States for the 2012 Games.
“We thought our bid was terrific. We still want the Olympics,” said Anne Cribs, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area 2012 Olympics campaign. San Francisco finished second to New York.
There was no controversy in the Bay Area over a stadium. Officials were going to use an existing facility at Stanford University to stage the opening and closing ceremonies and some of the major events.
Cribs admitted that she signed a letter complaining about the American Olympic Committee’s bid process after New York was selected two years ago.
Members from other cities wanted to see if the technical scores justified the choice. But she said that was all in the past and declined to criticize the New York fiasco, stressing how much time Big Apple officials put into their Olympics bid.
“Everybody wants to be an Olympic city,” she said. “We’ll wait to see what happens over the next few months.”
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Scathing words
‘I hate the idea that New York lost the Olympics . . . It got bogged down in City Hall politics . . . They put the cart before the horse. – Andrew Young