Reflections From a Murky Pond

Jacques Rogge, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), when asked if he regretted awarding the 2008 Olympics to China, admitted that it had not been a wise and a sound decision.

I’ve said that it is very easy with hindsight to criticize the decision. It’s easy to say now that this was not a wise and a sound decision.

— Jacques Rogge
IOC President

Yet Rogge defended himself by claiming that Beijing had “clearly the best bid” and offered the strong incentive of taking the Olympics to a country with 20% of the world’s total population.

This is a total load of bullshit! The only way that China had the best bid would be if criteria other than the IOC’s own Applicant City Evaluation Report was not only considered but weighed far more heavily than those official evaluations.

I’ve performed some research on China’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Below are my findings on the accuracy of Rogge claiming that had “clearly the best bid.“

Applicant City Evaluation Report Results From August 2000

According to these scores China was only the top contender in one category – their proposed Olympic Village. Overall China had the 2nd lowest composite score (37.1). Paris achieved the highest composite score (42.2). China also had the 2nd lowest Average Score (7.41), an average of the individual scores in each IOC category, whereas Paris once again had the higest score (8.44).

With Paris not only having the highest overall and average scores, but also having earned the highest individual scores in: General Infrastructure, Accommodation, Sports Infrastructure (tied with Toronto), and Transport Infrastructure, it seems that Paris and not Beijing had “clearly the best bid.”

The situation is actually worse though. The chart below details Beijing’s scores per category vs. the mean average of all the Applicant Cities.

This shows that Beijing actually scored below the average in 3 out of 5 categories. China had a mean average score 0.2 points below the composite average. It seems strange that such a score could indicate that Beijing should have been considered for the short list of Applicant Cities that the IOC would have voted on to host the 2008 Olympic Games, much less that Beijing would win that election.

Something else must have prompted the choice of Beijing as the 2008 Olympic Games’ host city. It obviously wasn’t their comparative ability to manage such an endeavor. The IOC Evaluation Committee certainly found them wanting.