Dick Ebersol's stunning resignation

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Dick Ebersol's abrupt resignation Thursday as head of NBC Sports is altogether unexpected and, frankly, not. It's also, for those of us who know him, respect him immensely, worked for him and with him, profoundly unsettling. Sad, even.

It raises a whole host of questions -- without immediate answers -- about the London 2012 Olympics, which NBC will televise, and beyond, whether NBC, now merged with Comcast, will aggressively bid for the rights to the 2014 and 2016 Games.

The International Olympic Committee has said it will call American bidders here, to Lausanne, the IOC's headquarters, just 18 days from now, on June 6 and 7, for the 2014 and 2016 auction. The rights to the 2018 and 2020 Games might also be in play. Besides NBC, ESPN and Fox are expected to bid.

The announcement Thursday changes everything.

Or maybe not.

It can be argued that Ebersol is the most important Olympic figure in the United States.

NBC has televised every Summer Games to American homes since 1988; it has broadcast every Winter Games since 2002.

Since he was a teen-ager, the Olympics have been an Ebersol passion. He temporarily  dropped out of Yale to become ABC Sports' first-ever Olympic researcher; that was before the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France.

He had been with NBC since 1989.

In an internal call Thursday with NBC employees, he spoke about walking the halls of the network offices, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, for more than 20 years. He said he would miss that.

I was a full-time NBC employee for four years -- from 2006 to 2010 -- and a part-time employee for three years before that. I wasn't based at 30 Rock in New York. Even so, the culture that Ebersol created at NBC Sports was everywhere NBC Sports was. He had one hard-and-fast rule: no jerks.

Television and, later, the internet were hard enough and pressure-filled enough without people being jerks to each other. So no jerks.

That was the very best part about working at NBC.

Assuredly, the senior executives who will show up at NBC Sports on Friday morning, just as they did on Thursday, are remarkably talented. Without question, the bid they're going to put together for future editions of the Games is going to be significant.

But without Ebersol, will it be enough?

Canadian IOC member Dick Pound, who in the mid-1990s engineered deals that swung the rights to NBC for multiple editions of the Games, said, "If they come without Ebersol, I guess they just come with a wallet."

NBC and Comcast executives called IOC president Jacques Rogge -- he took the call at 7:20 p.m. here local time -- to assure him that they still fully support the Olympic movement and intend to bid aggressively.

They said the timing of Ebersol's resignation had "nothing to do with the bidding for the Games," Rogge said in a brief interview in a hallway at the Palace Hotel, where the IOC's marketing commission was holding a dinner.

It was a "purely internal issue and Dick took a decision -- and we have to respect it," he said.

That said, Rogge allowed, Ebersol's announcement "was a shock for me."

Perhaps most tellingly, in a culture in which relationships traditionally are everything, Ebersol did not call Rogge in advance of the news breaking out to tell him about the resignation.

Rogge, for his part, said he had already sent Ebersol a letter. But he said Thursday evening -- this was halfway through that marketing commission dinner, which he stepped out of to say a few words to me and to Steve Wilson of the Associated Press -- that he had still not spoken to Ebersol.

Similarly, Ebersol -- who had been a hugely vocal critic of the U.S. Olympic Committee in October, 2009 -- had over the past several months recognized its new leadership, chief executive Scott Blackmun and chairman Larry Probst, with warm words.  Better yet, the USOC and NBC have been doing real business together in recent months.

In that same Palace Hotel hallway Thursday evening, here was Blackmun, standing next to Rogge. He said he had "no inkling" Ebersol was leaving.

"I'm sad," Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, the IOC's current lead U.S. television rights negotiator, said later Thursday night in the Palace lobby. "I admire him on a professional and personal level."

The fact is, earlier this week Ebersol was still making plans for business calls early next week.

It makes you wonder whether the Ebersol rupture with Comcast transpired with violent speed or just had been a long time coming.

This, too, is true about Ebersol. If he was in charge of something, it was the case that you were going to be doing it his way. Nothing wrong with that.

That said, I don't know if that way is the Comcast way.

I do know this: They're going to be holding the Summer Olympics in London in just a little over 14 months, and Dick Ebersol is not going to be in charge of the NBC broadcast, and that seems almost impossible to comprehend.

"He'll be at the Games," Rogge said. "I'll invite him."

Three bids, 88 members, 49 days to go

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Two years ago, Rio de Janeiro's bid team came here and put up a map that showed the Summer Games had never been to South America, a remarkably clever piece of stagecraft that separated Rio from four other contenders and, ultimately, made the case for its stunning win for the 2016 Summer Games. The three cities for the 2018 Winter Games came here Wednesday with movies and charts and Olympic medalists by the score, the two perceived chasers, Munich and Annecy, France, looking for a similar breakout moment to make up ground against the favorite, Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The Koreans came Wednesday with the admittedly "nervous" but nonetheless impressive Yuna Kim, the women's 2010 figure skating gold medalist. And they have their own world map.

That map shows that the Winter Games have been held in Asia only twice, and both times in Japan, in Nagano in 1998 and Sapporo in 1972.

This is the underlying dynamic of this 2018 race, and unless the others wield a compelling argument to the contrary, it's why this arguably is -- and always has been -- the Koreans' race to lose. The IOC will vote July 6 by secret ballot in Durban, South Africa.

The essential 2018 question is whether the forces of history, economics and demographics are -- or are not -- on Korea's side.

To frame it another way: Is the sports world still in the expansionist mode of recent years? Or is 2018 the campaign in which the IOC takes a break and opts for a more traditional locale before venturing forth anew in 2020, 2022 and beyond?

To be clear: The Koreans have a lot going for them. Then again, if they could win, of course they could lose. They have bid twice before for the Winter Games, for 2014 and 2010, and lost both times. Moreover, it's an International Olympic Committee election; by definition, the only thing predictable about an IOC campaign is that it's unpredictable.

Indeed, sometimes it's just flat-out unusual.

One such moment:

At the session Wednesday, held at the Olympic Museum, and formally dubbed a "technical briefing," with each city given a 45-minute presentation window followed by a question-and-answer session, Hicham el Guerrouj, the great Moroccan middle-distance runner who since 2004 has been an IOC member, posed a question during Annecy's time about the arrest in New York on sexual assault charges of French financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

IOC president Jacques Rogge promptly ruled the question out of order.

Rogge was not asked about that question at an end-of-the day news conference.

He declared the day a big success: "It was a very good day for the International Olympic Committee because whoever wins will definitely be able to stage very good Games."

He also said, and perhaps he's absolutely right about this, perhaps he's just practicing diplomacy: "It's going to be a close race."

The Koreans, with their tagline about taking the Games to "new horizons," would appear in many regards to be driving the campaign. At the least, the other two bids have felt compelled to respond to the Korean narrative.

"When you choose the Olympic host city, it is about more than just geography," Katarina Witt, the chair of the Munich bid, stunning as ever in a low-cut dress by the Berlin designer Michalsky, told the 88 IOC members on hand, stressing that Munich would deliver full stadiums and "the single greatest experience" of each athlete's life.

It's not just about geography, of course.

Even so, the broad theme of the era in which we are living is writ large.

The nations that through the 1990s played host to major sports events have been giving way in recent years to countries and regions that, logically enough, are saying, it's our turn now.

As a for instance, this is why -- despite what is shaping up to be a comparatively weak field for 2020 -- the U.S. Olympic Committee, even if its revenue and marketing issues with the IOC are resolved, ought to give serious, serious pause before considering an entry.

One theory holds that after ranging afield to new locales -- such as Rio for 2016 -- the IOC needs to park in a safe harbor, such as the U.S., for 2020.

Applying that theory now would deliver 2018 to Germany or France -- after 2014 in Sochi, Russia, where they're building a brand-new Winter Games destination from scratch.

The competing theory is that the Olympic and international sports world is still very much in the midst of turning away from what was and toward what's next.

See, for example: Russia 2014; Brazil 2016 (and soccer's World Cup in 2014.)

Russia, again, for the World Cup in 2018. Qatar, for the World Cup in 2022.

Qatar, again, for the men's team handball world championship in 2015 -- chosen this past January over three European bids, from France, Norway and Poland.

Our world is changing all around us. Just a couple days ago, in an event that went virtually unnoticed in the United States but is big stuff in Europe, with more than 100 million people tuned in to watch the final episode, Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet republics, won the Eurovision song contest.

Germany was 10th; Britain, 11th. Spain and France finished farther still down the list.

Azerbaijan winning Eurovision -- that underscores a major cultural and economic shift.

Here's another huge economic shift in the making, a point the Koreans have underscored time and again during this 2018 campaign:

By 2030, according to an Asian Development Bank Study, Asia will make up 43 percent of worldwide consumption. From 1990 to 2008, the middle class in Asia grew by 30 percent, and spent an average of an additional $1.7 trillion annually. No other region in the world comes close.

Complicating the 2018 Olympic dynamic, though, is the factor of personality politics.

Thomas Bach, the vice president and presumed IOC presidential candidate in 2013, is leading the Munich bid. He observed Wednesday that "there are cycles of life," a time where "you go to new shores" and another "where you cultivate your foundations."

While the presentations Wednesday were important, the behind-the-scenes politicking now begins in earnest.

"This is a marathon race," Bach said at a news conference. "It's of no importance whether you lead at 22k or 35k or 40k. The only thing that counts is to cross the finish line first, on the 6th of July. After today's presentation and the response, which we can feel, we go into this final stretch of this very special Olympic marathon with full confidence and with all the determination and with all the passion we can have for the Olympic Games in Germany and for winter sports in particular."

Asked where Munich stood at this point in the "marathon," Bach answered, "I don't care. This is, as I said, about winning."

For their part, the French team includes Jean-Claude Killy, the triple 1968 Games ski champion turned sports administrator. Arguably no one within the Olympic movement carries more credibility within winter sports circles. "We think we have nothing to envy the other two propositions," he told reporters after the French had briefed the 88 members.

Later, he said that he supported the bid "very strongly." He also, reading from a paper left over from the German news conference, said, "It says here that 'Munich loves you.' So I just want you to know that we love you, too."

The chairman of the Korean bid, Yang Ho Cho, met reporters immediately after the Pyeongchang presentation ended. In keeping with the Korean message of humility, he said, "The decision is up to the IOC members. We did our best," adding a moment later, "We sent a message of new horizons."

--

A quickie and by no means exhaustive summary of the three bids:

-- Munich: One of the world's great cities. Re-purposed 1972 Summer Games venues. Big crowds. Fantastic guaranteed atmosphere. German business underwrites 50 percent of the revenues of the seven sports on the Winter Games program. Germany hasn't hosted the Winter Games since 1936.

-- Annecy: The IOC has had a penchant for staging recent Winter Games in big cities -- Vancouver, Torino, Salt Lake City. What about the mountains? "Authentic" Annecy, amid the world's most iconic mountain range and with a sustainable development plan in mind, is uniquely positioned to take the Winter Games, and mountain communities worldwide, into a 21st-century future.

-- Pyeongchang: Time is not only ripe but right to go to Asia and South Korea to grow the Winter Games, and in a big way. 87 percent national support for 2018 Games. Major national priority. Two prior bids, spent $1.4 billion to build first-class Alpensia resort in what used to be potato fields. "We are keeping our promises to the IOC," former provincial governor and bid leader Jin Sun Kim stressed at news conference.

USOC finances: revenue up, salaries down

When you put competent people in charge and let them do what they know how to do, you get a healthy-looking tax return like the one the United States Olympic Committee made public on Monday morning. Let's face it. Tax returns are, in the main, boring documents. They're black-and-white and full of rows and columns and numbers.

Basically, journalists like to comb through them and pick out salary numbers and go, aha!  Look how much money so-and-so made! That's because, as a rule, journalists don't make anywhere near as much money as the so-and-so's we report on even though we are just as smart as they are, if not smarter (we like to think), and but for our career choices we could be making as much money or more as those so-and-so's if we had only listened to our mothers. As usual, our mothers were right.

Honestly,  that whole process is kind of tired.

What's way more interesting is a macro view of the document, which is formally known as a Form 990. The U.S. government makes an institution like the USOC file it once a year. It comes out every spring.

What this year's version tells you is that, even in a bummer of an economy, the USOC, under the profoundly competent leadership of chief executive Scott Blackmun, and a board of directors led by Larry Probst, is trending in all the right directions. Kudos to them and to the marketing efforts of Lisa Baird and branding efforts of Peter Zeytoonjian.

Revenue (page 10): $250.6 million.

Against expenses (page 11): $191.6 million.

A reminder for any and all who are not familiar with the essential principle of the USOC's financial life. Virtually every other national Olympic committee in the world is supported by its own federal government. Not the USOC. By order of the U.S. Congress, the USOC must be self-supporting. Every dime, every dollar  -- everything -- it gets, it must generate on its own initiative.

Back to the form:

As compared to his predecessor, Stephanie Streeter, Blackmun's compensation is down 49 percent (page 53, and the prior year's Form 990).

Total salaries paid to the chief executive, the chief operating offer, the chief financial officer, the chief marketing officer and the general counsel, as compared to the 2009 totals: down 23 percent (page 53, and the prior year's Form 990).

Same group's total compensation: down 42 percent in 2010 from 2009 (again, page 53, and the prior year's Form 990).

For purposes of this discussion, there is a key difference between salary and total compensation, meaning the full package that includes benefits such as insurance and in some cases relocation assistance.

A couple other notes:

Of the top five independent contractors, three were direct mail companies (page 8). In our internet era, one wonders how much longer that will continue to be the case.

The single largest contributor to the USOC? Logically enough, the city of Colorado Springs, Colo., where the USOC is based ($19.75 million, page 21). The USOC, of course, has moved into a new headquarters building in downtown Colorado Springs.

USA Track & Field got a $4.4 million grant. Lots of national governing bodies get grants -- that's the way the system works. It makes sense that USATF gets the most money, far and away, because it's the glamor sport of the Summer Games. (U.S. Ski  & Snowboard, which rules the Winter Games, justifiably got the second-most, about $3.87 million.) Here's a thought: For $4.4 million, the American relay teams had really better learn to hold on to the batons in London in 2012. There's no excuse.

Just a thought to close. It is indeed the case that $250 million is a lot of money. What, one wonders, do you think the number is on the revenue column at the Chinese Olympic Committee's annual report?

It would be fantastic if Beijing -- and for that matter, every national Olympic committee around the world -- made these same sorts of facts and figures publicly available, wouldn't it?

The good stuff about college sports

The football coach in the sweater vest in Columbus, Ohio, is on the hot seat. The Fiesta Bowl just got itself fined $1 million for a fantastic scandal.

Here in Los Angeles, at the University of Southern California, they know a thing or two as well about football-related, um, irregularities.

But a graduation ceremony Thursday at USC's Galen Center also highlighted a lot of what is right the state of about college athletics in the United States in 2011 even as it underscored, again, a simple fact about college sports and the Olympics.

In many sports, it is still the case that the American university system is the farm team for the U.S. Olympic team.

Among those graduating Thursday: water polo player J.W. Krumpholz. He's a two-time national player of the year, a member of two NCAA championship teams and a 2008 Beijing Games silver medalist.

J.W. stayed at USC this year, earning his degree in communications, even though his athletic eligibility had expired and he had offers to play professionally overseas, one in Montenegro and another in Croatia.

J.W.'s reasoning for staying in school was elemental. Water polo is for now and, assuming good health, for 2012 and 2016, maybe 2020. The degree is forever. "I wanted to set myself up in life and every year I stayed away," playing in Europe, "it would be harder and harder to get it done," he said.

J.W.'s dad, Kurt, a swimmer who once held the world record in the 400-meter freestyle, went to UCLA. Kurt showed up Thursday in a blue-and-gold Hawaiian shirt. J.W.'s mom, Debra, went to UCLA. J.W.'s older sister, Kathryn, went to UCLA. J.W.'s younger sister, Caroline, is a sophomore at UCLA, and has the highest grade-point average on the Bruin water-polo team.

J.W., speaking to the crowd, noted that his childhood and adolescence had been unavoidably filled with "anti-Trojan propaganda." Indeed, he said with a smile that his immediate family, along with other relatives, had "all Bruined their lives … but I love them."

For his part, Kurt had said before the ceremony with a big laugh, "Four Bruins, one Trojan. We are extremely proud of the black sheep that he went back and finished.

"Some of his water polo cronies -- they unfortunately never really graduated. As I told him, if you go to Europe, we will work it out. He said, I want to finish. I want to graduate. I want to have closure."

Family, fun, dreams, hope and inspiration -- this was the stuff of Thursday's graduation.

"Sure, it sounds hokey and trite," USC athletic director Pat Haden said before it all got underway. "But it's not."

Lizette Salas, the daughter of Latino immigrants, the nation's No. 2-ranked golfer on the top-ranked women's golf team in the country, soon to become a four-time All American, is the first member of her family to earn a college degree (in sociology). She learned the game from her dad, a machinist at a golf course in Azusa, east of Los Angeles.

Pro golf is next. She told the crowd, "It doesn't matter where you come from. Dreams can come true if you work hare and have faith in yourself."

Even if, as it did in Tim McDonald's case, it takes 25 years.

McDonald, one of the greatest defensive backs players in USC history, a two-time All-American in 1985 and 1986 who went on to star in a 13-year career in the NFL, first at Arizona, then San Francisco, winning a Super Bowl with the 49ers. He is now a high school coach in Fresno; his son, T.J., is currently USC's starting safety.

Tim left USC early to play pro ball. He came back over this past year to complete his bachelor's degree in communications, driving down from Fresno three times a week.

"I've been in the business of kids," he said before the ceremony started. "I've coached kids, mentored kids. A lot of kids I've worked with over the past 10 years didn't understand the value of college. To be honest, I felt a little hypocritical.

"And to be honest, my mom was a little disappointed.

"And I've got three kids. They didn't breathe without me talking about education. I'd be darned if I'd have them go, 'I've got mine -- where's yours?' "

Finally, they gave a special award Thursday to the legendary Louis Zamperini, now 94, who at age 19 ran in the 5000 meters in the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, finishing eighth.

In World War II, he survived a plane crash at sea, then a hellish 47-day ordeal on the water, then a brutal 2 1/2-year captivity in a Japanese prison camp. The story is chronicled in the current best-seller, "Unbroken."

For all that, this is a USC guy through and through. He wore a sportcoat and a USC baseball cap to the lectern.

"Young people," he said, "often ask me this question: 'Did you ever think about dying on the life raft?'

"No, I never thought about dying. I was too focused on living. I think you can apply that to athletics. My brother taught me to never think about losing -- always think about winning." And then he said, because this is what they say at USC, "Fight on!"

They gave him a standing ovation.

--

Disclaimer: USC announced recently I'm going to start teaching a sportswriting class next year at its Annenberg school. This column has nothing to do with that.

Aaron Peirsol, swim ambassador and waterman

Now that he's retired from competition, all of 27 years old, we can let you in on a little secret about Aaron Peirsol, the greatest backstroke swimmer the United States of America ever produced. It has always been one of the great joys of journalism to write about Aaron, winner of seven Olympic medals, five of them gold.

Win or lose, Aaron has always gracious, thoughtful, passionate. Any competition was better because Aaron was there, big or small. Especially small. That's when you really got a chance to talk to him -- and even in the weirdness of what's called the "mixed zone," where athletes and reporters mingle, the breadth and depth of his interests would inevitably surface, anything and everything from politics and current events to literature to his zeal for environmental protection.

Even at the biggest of the big meets he was a champ, and in the biggest sense of that word. At the world championships two years ago in Rome, when he didn't qualify for the finals of the 100-meter backstroke, a race he had essentially owned, he straight-up said it was his own fault. He didn't pout. He came back and won the 200 back, and broke his own world record.

Aaron formally announced his retirement earlier this year, and as they say, one door closes and another opens. Now the sport has on call one of the greatest ambassadors you could ever ask for. And the man is totally willing.

His message: swimming is more than just up and down, back and forth, in a pool, looking down at that black stripe.

Swimming is about water, and our planet is water, and water is life itself.

"If I could get each swimmer on the [U.S.] national team one thing," Aaron was saying the other day, "it would be a pair of body-surfing fins.

"Get out there and have fun. Don't lose perspective on why you do this."

Training for the Olympics can, let's face it, be a grind. But the fact is, that kind of training imbues dozens if not hundreds of hometown standouts with an enviable skill set. That's a simple message that Aaron is trying to get other elite swimmers to try to better understand.

Because if they can understand it -- it stands to reason that they can pass that message along.

This is, actually, the way it works. Aaron grew up looking up at the guys who seemed larger than life -- the guys who already knew how to handle the famed Wedge in Newport Beach, California, one of the world's most famous spots for surfing of all sorts. He started in the Junior Lifeguard program in Southern California. At 17, he and his buddies were big enough, good enough and one day confident enough to tackle the Wedge on their own.

Now he's the one with the message. Again, this is how it all works, and how it's supposed to work.

"It's so great to be able to understand that even when you're done with swimming in the pool you have the ability to experience something, to take it to another level -- to use this skill and ability to take it to a level that maybe few people can, to understand that you have a gift. It's just the tip of the iceberg for so many swimmers.

"So many guys on the national team are like, 'I'm never going in the ocean.' I'm like, 'You're joking.' That's why we do this -- so you can get thrown around and be active and explore a little bit with what you can do out there."

Just a couple examples:

This past weekend, in Florida, Aaron took part in an open-ocean race held in honor of Fran Crippen, the American swimmer who died in a race last October in Dubai.

In February, on the North Shore of Oahu, Aaron was among those who took part in the 2011 Pipeline Bodysurfing Classic. Sure, some of those there knew who he was. But the way to earn credibility in that crowd is to do what comes naturally to Aaron Peirsol -- to move with humility and to treat everyone and everything around you, and in particular the ocean, with respect.

"This competition was my first at Pipeline," he said. "I was hesitant because I hadn't gone out a week in advance and practiced, or anything like that. I had only gotten there the night before. I went out early that morning and I was just trying to be as humble as I could be.

"It was so much fun. The waves were such pretty waves. They were just as perfect as could be. You get in the wave and you pick a line and it just shoots you out. It was a good-sized day -- none of it was too big or too scary. Everyone was just having fun.

"For me it was felt so good. It felt like home in my own way. It was nice."

He said, "I would just love to see -- I would just love to have swimmers understand what they have."

Pyeongchang's 2018 evaluation report win

In the old days of the Soviet Union, experts from afar used to watch the grand parades ever so carefully. They would carefully parse the reviewing stand to see which dignitaries were seated next to which generals. That way they might be able to figure out what might really be going on behind the Iron Curtain. It's much the same in trying to divine the real meaning of the International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission reports.

There is, actually, a method to it. It's all nuance. It's not just what is said but how.

Such a close read of the document issued Tuesday makes plain that Pyeongchang, the perceived front-runner all along in the 2018 race, got the best marks, cementing the Korean bid's status heading into next week's pivotal briefing before the full membership at IOC headquarters in Lausanne.

The evaluation commission went to lengths to praise Munich and Annecy, France, too.

But it's the way the praise for Pyeongchang was written, and the way perceived obstacles deflected, that proved so key.

For instance, tensions on the Korean peninsula? Not to worry. Such tensions have existed for 60 years, the report said, adding that "Pyeongchang and the region can be regarded as a safe and low-risk environment for the Games."

Compact venue plans? Check.

Land required for the Games? Roger that.

Public support? "No apparent opposition to the Games." Indeed, the report said, an IOC poll shows support for the Games at 87 percent across Korea, 92 percent in Pyeongchang.

Federal backing? The Korean government assured the IOC that hosting the Games was a national priority.

And then this, probably the most significant sentence in the full report: "Overall, the commission believes the legacy from a 2018 Pyeongchang Games, building on existing legacies from previous Olympic Winter Games bids, would be significant to further develop winter sport in Asia."

Disclaimer: Nothing is predictable in an IOC election. Just ask Paris, the perceived 2012 Summer Games front-runner. Paris lost to London in the final round of voting in 2005.

Further disclaimer: The evaluation report is not nearly as important as the meeting next week in Lausanne and, at the risk of being obvious, the IOC session in July, in Durban, South Africa, at which the 2018 vote will be taken.

Even so: What the evaluation commission report can do is offer members a safe harbor. That is -- a rationale, if they want one, for voting a particular way.

For instance, this from the summary section of the 2016 evaluation commission document: "A Rio 2016 Games aims to showcase Brazil's and Rio's capabilities, social and economic development and natural features."

Like the sentence about Pyeongchang and legacy -- that just radiates sunny optimism.

Compare this from the summary section about Chicago's 2016 bid. The "well-designed and compact" athletes' village would be a "special experience." But transport, in a city where the el train takes people everywhere, was somehow thought to be a "major challenge."  Temporary venues, which the bid committee had played up as a clever innovation, "increases the element of risk." Worst of all, Chicago 2016 had not at press time provided the necessary finance guarantees and "the commission informed the bid that a standard Host City Contract applied to all cities."

Thud. And you wonder why, among other reasons, Chicago got just 18 votes and was bounced in the first round?

It's not the "technical" stuff itself. It's more the way those elements contribute to the perception of a bid that sometimes starts sweeping the membership.

To be clear, this 2018 report -- like its predecessors -- absolutely does not rank the cities. The report presents the race as a three-horse derby, saying "each city's concept offers a viable option to the IOC though the very nature of each project presents different risks."

Again, though, when the report gently -- or as in the case of Chicago, not so gently -- points out challenges, that's when you have to ask, why? Of all the things the commission could point out, why this? And how did this come about?

In Munich's case, the report was -- no question -- positive, as it should have been, given that many of the 1972 Summer Games venues would be re-used for the Winter Games; the allure of Munich itself, one of the world's most dynamic cities; and avid German crowd and financial support for winter sports. But then this:

"There is some opposition to the bid at the local level," the report said, and the IOC opinion poll fixed public support for the Games at 60 percent in Munich, 53 percent in Bavaria and 56 percent nationally.

Poll numbers in the 50s and 60s? Uh-oh.

Munich bid leaders say their own poll now shows a 75 percent nationwide approval rating.

For its part, Annecy got way better marks in this report than in a survey several months ago, the commission even citing the Annecy vision of being a "catalyst and a model for sustainable development in the mountain region."

Nonetheless, the report said, Annecy still faces basic logistical issues, including a "relatively spread out" system of athlete villages that would pose "operational and transport challenges" for coaches and athletes.

It's all right there. You just have to know how to read it.

As ever with the IOC members, however, you don't know if they do read these reports. After all, this one runs to 119 pages.

Like trying to decipher generals from potentates at the old-style parades,  there has to be a better way -- but that's a column for another day, perhaps after the vote this coming July.

Angela Ruggiero's amazing ride

Even by the standards of Angela Ruggiero's already remarkable life, she had an amazing winter. Well, and early spring. Here was Angela as International Olympic Committee member, wining and dining and flying all over the world as part of the select IOC commission evaluating the three cities in the 2018 Winter Games race -- Pyeongchang, South Korea; Munich, Germany; and Annecy, France. Glamorous? Sure. But hard work -- the commission prepared a lengthy report that was issued Tuesday rating all three. And hard on the body -- the last photo op in France took place on a Saturday night and the commission had to be peppy and hard at work in Korea early on a Wednesday morning.

Here, too, was Angela as world-class hockey player, now in late April in Zurich, capping her tenth world championships with a gold medal, a 3-2 overtime victory over Canada, Hillary Knight scoring the winner 7:48 into overtime.

"I feel so lucky to be a part of it," Angela said, meaning both worlds, adding, "They're completely different worlds, for sure. One day, I'm talking to the president or prime minister of France or Korea or Germany.

"The next day I'm in the gym, lifting weights or on the treadmill, talking to my college-age teammates about their exams coming up.

"They're just completely different worlds."

The IOC evaluation commission traditionally reserves a spot for an athlete's point of view. But it's not clear that any serving athlete has been as ever been as simultaneously engaged in both commission and athletic career as Angela Ruggiero.

As ever, Angela is something of a pioneer.

For instance, the great Russian swimmer Alex Popov served on the 2016 Summer Games commission -- but he was no longer racing competitively when the commission made its rounds in 2009.

Similarly, Canadian cross-country skiing great Beckie Scott served on the 2014 Winter Games commission that did its work in 2007. She had retired from competitive skiing the year before.

One more example: Frankie Fredericks, the track and field star from the African nation of Namibia, served on the 2012 Summer Games commission, which performed its duties in early 2005. He had retired from competition at the end of the 2004 outdoor season.

Angela became an IOC member last year, at the Vancouver Games, elected as an athlete amid a career that has seen her win four Olympic medals (one gold, two silver and one bronze) -- so far. She's only 31. Noting that the Detroit Red Wings' 40-year-old Nick Lidstrom was just nominated for the NHL's Norris Trophy, the league's best defenseman award, which he has already won six times, she said, "In hockey years, I'm not that old."

Among other accomplishments, Angela also, and this makes for just a few highlights:

-- Was among those  honored by carrying the World Trade Center flag into the opening ceremony at the Salt Lake City Games (2002);

-- Earned a Harvard degree (2004);

-- Played in a men's professional hockey game (2005, for the Tulsa Oilers of the Central Hockey League);

-- And, of course, hung tough through several rounds of "The Apprentice" (2007).

That world championship gold marked the Americans team's fourth world title in the last five events.

Oh -- just before the hockey season got underway, Angela moved. She packed up last fall, from Los Angeles and settled back into Cambridge, Mass.

For most people, moving cross-country would be enough.

For Angela -- that was just the start of that zany ride through winter, and into spring. With more yet to come. The full IOC meets next week in Lausanne, Switzerland, to review the report that was issued Tuesday. In July, in Durban, South Africa, the IOC will elect the 2018 city.

There were times this winter, Angela said, when it all seemed like a blur. But at the same time -- great fun.

"I remember going to the gym -- and there are no windows in my gym -- and it was 8 in the morning. But it was 8 in the evening in Korea," which was still the time her body was on. "My training," she laughed, "was still a little bit off."

She said, "I was asked by the IOC president to be on this very important commission. For me, it was the chance of a lifetime. It was -- it was an unbelievable experience."

On Peter Vidmar's resignation as U.S. chef de mission

As a journalist, I totally get why Peter Vidmar stepped down Friday as chef de mission of the 2012 U.S. Olympic team. As Peter's friend, I find the whole thing profoundly regrettable. Candidly, I deplore the rush to judgment amid the political correctness and the intense immediacy of the 24-hour news cycle that in many regards has overtaken our political and media cultures. I also wish we could all find a way to tone down the often-incendiary rhetoric that nowadays seems way too common in far too many conversations in the public sphere  -- even in a case such as this one, which in theory revolves around sports but underscores yet again how sports and politics are intertwined.

Again, as a journalist -- I get it. I get all of it. Believe me, Peter does, too.

Understand: Peter has been on our side of the journalists' fence. He was, for instance, a working commentator at the 2008 Games in Beijing; he and I sat right next to each other in the press tribune in the gymnastics arena for a full week. And so he knew now where this was going. As much as a distraction as this might have been on Thursday and Friday, it was nothing compared to the noise once, say, the British tabloids might have seized upon it.

Peter's participation in two demonstrations on behalf of the successful 2008 Proposition 8 ballot initiative in California, and his donation of $2,000 to that cause, was threatening to become a major distraction. He really had no choice.

Understand, too: The USOC accepted the resignation but was prepared to stand by Peter.

Peter Vidmar is one of the finest human beings you would ever want to meet. I said he is my friend -- I was proud to call him my friend before this outburst started and I'm proud to call him my friend now.

Here's what is so troubling about all this.

Roughly within just one 24-hour news cycle, Peter became a symbol of something he absolutely is not. Just because you take a position against gay marriage does not mean you're anti-gay.

"I fully respect the rights of everyone to have the relationships they want to have," Peter told the Chicago Tribune in an interview in the story that started all of this. "I respect the rights of all of our athletes, regardless of their race, their religion or their sexual orientation."

Nonetheless, figure skater Johnny Weir told the Tribune it was "disgraceful" that Peter had been named the 2012 U.S. team leader.

Johnny is fully entitled to his opinion. That's the American way.

This is the American way, too:

Peter took part in the American democratic process. The First Amendment guarantees his rights to religious expression -- his Mormon faith teaches him that marriage is between a man and a woman -- and to peaceably assemble.

It's a pretty straight line from there, amplified by coverage in the Tribune and USA Today, to his decision to step down.

When the retributive process for taking a stand for something you might genuinely believe in can be so ferocious that a profoundly decent person like Peter Vidmar has to withdraw, it has to give you serious pause.

Also: If Mormon beliefs are an Olympic disqualifier -- remind me, how did we have those Games in Salt Lake City in 2002?

Moreover, how is it that Mitt Romney, who is Mormon and who led the Salt Lake Organizing Committee, can be elected governor of Massachusetts and now finds himself a credible candidate for president of the United States, and a conservative Republican candidate at that, but Peter Vidmar shouldn't be the USOC's team leader in 2012? Really?

This is also the fact -- Prop 8 is the law of the state in which Peter and I both live. It passed in the November 2008 election, with about 7 million votes, 52.2 percent of the ballots.

It's absolutely the case that the Olympic movement stands against discrimination. It's one of the "fundamental principles" of the Olympic charter.

I'm not here to defend Prop 8. I voted against it. Peter knows that, just as he knows that I respect his position, and the basis of his stance. As a matter of logic, though, isn't it worth asking the question: is it really discriminatory to hold a position in line with some 7 million other registered voters? More -- is such a position "disgraceful"? Truly?

It's also fact that the Olympic charter doesn't say word one about marriage being between a man and a woman.

The Olympics is not per se about equality.

It's about striving for the best of who we, as humanity, are -- or can be.

The open question is what that all means. The answer: different things to different people.

One expression of that is, of course, equality. But "equality" is susceptible to an incredible variety of interpretations.

Reasonable people have to be able to disagree about big ideas, and to have dialogue without the dialogue immediately becoming what it did in this instance -- inflammatory.

Peter Vidmar has led an exemplary personal and professional life. He would have made an extraordinary team leader. He was an athlete, a double gold medalist; he has led a life of service; he knows the Olympics; he loves the movement.

It's a shame he got bit by sound-bites. As a journalist, I totally understand it. But as his friend and as a fellow American -- that doesn't mean I have to like it, and I don't.

On little girls, heroes and Lindsey Vonn

Kristina Wolff is 11 years old. She is a sixth-grader who lives in Stratham, New Hampshire. She worships Lindsey Vonn, the American skiing champion. Kristina is a true fan. She has pictures of Lindsey on the refrigerator. The whole family -- Kristina and her brother, Kyle, who's 9, and her parents, Kim and Dave -- went out to Vail, Colo., last fall and saw some of the best American skiers train, including Lindsey, of course. Lindsey, who's routinely gracious about this sort of thing, stopped for a photo with the kids, and that only made Lindsey that much more of a hero.

A few nights ago, Kristina was lounging around the living room, and the phone rang. You'll never guess who it was. Well, maybe you might. Sometimes little girls' dreams really do come true.

"This is Lindsey Vonn calling," Lindsey Vonn said.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh!" Kristina said, though it's kind of hard to figure out precisely how many times she said, "Oh my gosh," since she jumped up like she'd been jolted by electricity and ran from one room into another, her dad filming the entire thing on the video camera.

The rest of the conversation -- you can watch it here -- serves as a powerful reminder of just why Charles Barkley had it so wrong and Lindsey Vonn has it so right.

The world is desperate for heroes. America's Olympic athletes are absolutely role models. Little girls and little boys want to be like them.

It's all rather elegantly simple, and at 11 Kristina Wolff has it all figured out.

Lindsey Vonn is her hero. And why not?

Kristina is an aspiring ski racer. Lindsey is the best female alpine ski racer in American history, with 12 World Cup titles, including three overall crowns, and of course two Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill. Moreover, Lindsey has a history of coming back from amazing falls and spills, so she's powerfully tough. And, besides, Lindsey is blonde and pretty and when she's not skiing she gets to be in movies and on TV shows like "Law and Order."

So why did Lindsey call Kristina, out of all the people in the world? Because Kim Wolff, Kristina's mom, had been searching for a poster for Kristina, and word had gotten around to the people at Red Bull, one of Lindsey's corporate sponsors, about Super-Fan Kristina.

"For such a young little soul, it's just fantastic," Kim said of her daughter's connection with Lindsey.

Kim and Dave, who themselves are active skiers on the master's-racing circuit, actually knew all that day that Lindsey was going to be calling that night -- that's how Dave knew to have the camera ready -- but they didn't say a word.

Kristina, Kim said, has watched literally dozens if not hundreds of interviews with Lindsey on television or on Universal Sports. That's how Kristina knew immediately it really was Lindsey's voice on the other end of the line.

"I was so excited to talk to her," Kristina said in a telephone call.

"When I had gone to Vail, I talked to her for only a little bit. This time she called me and not somebody else. She called me! She chose to talk to me! She chose me to talk to! It was so cool. Out of all her millions of fans -- I was so excited."

When Kristina caught her breath again, the question was put to her -- if you had Lindsey all by yourself, what would you say?

She took a deep breath. She said, "I would probably tell her how much she inspires me and how much I want to be a great athlete like her and how she always -- she doesn't even know she helps me get through stuff, when I remember her and how she doesn't give up.

"Just thinking of her helps me through it and she inspires me to be better every day. to train like her.

"I'd probably hug her, too."

P.S.: After they talked on the phone, Lindsey sent Kristina a signed poster. It reads, "To Kristina, It was great to talk to you on the phone! Good luck with everything! Love, Lindsey Vonn"

Sport and the environment in 21st-century Qatar

DOHA, Qatar -- The International Olympic Committee gave the Japanese swim federation, among others, an award on the occasion of its "9th world conference on sport and the environment" held here over the past several days. For what? At the Japanese national championships, they used to print out race results on paper. The federation switched to a system that posts all results on its website.  Results are posted within 10 seconds after each race is done.

Sheets of paper saved: 2 million. Trees saved: 150.

When the system is put into practice at some 1,500 competitions across Japan in the near future, some 200 million pieces of paper -- 17,000 trees -- will be saved, federation officials estimate.

Let's be honest. A conference like this doesn't itself save the world.

But an initiative like that from the Japanese swim federation is not insignificant. And a conference like this one does highlight ways in which key sports, environmental and political leaders can find ways to talk to each other. And dialogue is always a good thing.

At the outset, Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations environment program, said from the lectern to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge, "Our partnership with you is one of the great opportunities to give the world hope and courage."

Closing the event, Rogge vowed at a news conference to "continue our strategy of education, regulation and partnership."

The assembly marked the first time the IOC had held its every-two-years environment meeting in the Middle East.

The conference was the first major session since the IOC became a permanent observer to the UN. It thus made for a prelude of sorts to the 2012 Earth Summit to be held in Rio de Janeiro, the 2016 Olympic city.

More than 80 national Olympic committee representatives were on hand, as were delegates from some 20 international sports federations.

For those more interested in IOC politics -- some two dozen IOC members were also here, along with delegates from each of the three cities in the 2018 bid race: Munich; Annecy, France; and Pyeongchang, South Korea.  The Koreans came up just short in bids for the 2014 and 2010 Winter Games and while environmental issues made for a key theme of those bids, Sun-Kyoo Park, a culture, sport and tourism vice-minister said Monday in an interview with a group of reporters, "It is now more important because green growth has become a global issue."

That the conference took place in Doha was of course most intriguing on another level. This is, as the huge banner outside the conference center, the Sheraton hotel, reminded all put it, the new "global sport center." The golf and tennis tours make regular stops here. They're bidding for the 2017 world track and field championships after holding the first-rate world indoor 2010 championships. They put on the hugely successful 2006 Asian Games. They will put on the Pan-Arab Games this December -- an event that deserves wider attention, with 7,000 athletes.

And, of course, Qatar will stage the 2022 soccer World Cup. And it's in connection with the winning bid for that World Cup that they launched one of the most compelling environmental initiatives in recent memory.

Here they cool soccer stadiums to beat the desert heat.

They've known how to do that for a while. The Al Sadd soccer stadium, for instance, uses such technology. The basic premise is amazingly clever: Cool air is forced through pipes and onto the field to cool the pitch itself; at Al Sadd they took the design factor forward an extra step by covering the pipe exhausts with faux soccer balls.

The stands are also cooled by the same technology. Pipes deliver cool air to vents that sit under each seat.

All of that, however, uses standard air-conditioning technologies. So it isn't perhaps super-environmentally friendly.

What they did for the World Cup bid was unveil a new solar-powered system and promise a carbon-neutral event. This is what happens in a forward-thinking place like Qatar, and why an observation from the lectern from the secretary-general of the Qatar Olympic Committee, Sheikh Saoud bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, proved so resonant.

Last Sept. 14, the day that inspectors from soccer's world governing body, FIFA, showed up to see the purpose-built "cooling technology showcase" model stadium, it was 42 degrees celsius -- 106 degrees Fahrenheit -- outside.

Inside the showcase, it was 23 degrees celsius, or 73 Fahrenheit.

The system uses solar energy -- which is abundant here -- to heat water. That hot water is then put into a tank for an "absorption chiller" chemical reaction that cools it way down. Voila -- ready temperature control.

They didn't solve the world's environmental challenges this weekend. But what there is to learn from the Japanese swim federation, and from the Qatari soccer and Olympic delegations, is that a little imagination and ingenuity can go a long way.

"Nobody believes," Sheikh Saoud said in Arabic, speaking through a translator and referring not just to his own nation but to all of humanity and the environmental challenge we all face, "that we can be inactive or complacent."