The Salt Lake Olympic Bid Committee showed off its secret weapon in the battle for the 2002 Winter Games Wednesday: a 10-year-old girl from West Valley City.
Cynthia Ruiz, a skinny, dark-haired sixth-grader who skates at the Bountiful ice rink, will tell members of the International Olympic Committee on Friday why they should choose Salt Lake City."We just have a great package," she told a group of reporters inside the Budapest Kongresszusi Kozport, the convention center where each of the four competing cities will make their final presentation before the IOC vote.
Sion, Switzerland, will make the first of the four hourlong presentations, followed by Salt Lake City; Ostersund, Sweden; and Quebec, Canada. All of the bid cities plan to use athletes in their presentation.
Besides Ruiz, who is just beginning her athletic career, Salt Lake's presentation will include Olympic medalist Picabo Street, Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, Salt Lake Mayor Deedee Corradini and several bid officials.
Ruiz said she will make a speech, the bid committee will show a video that includes footage of her skating and "then hopefully we'll get the Olympics." Salt Lake City, she said, offers "what they want for the Winter Games."
Ever poised, she credited bid committee president Tom Welch with coaching her in her performance. Told later of her comments, Welch returned the compliment.
"She's the star of the show, and she'll steal your heart. There just couldn't be a better representative of the youth of our state," Welch said.
Utah's young population - the youngest of the four bid cities - is a strong selling point for bid officials. The spirit of the Olympics, they promise, will inspire all those young people to participate in sports.
That's the kind of subtle pitch Salt Lake City has been making all week here. Even though the other bid cities are maintaining somewhat higher profiles, the session is being described by IOC members as low-key.
"I think they finally got the message of what we like and what we appreciate," Thomas Bach, a member of the IOC Executive Board from Germany, told the Deseret News.
Bach headed the IOC Evaluation Commission that produced a report showing Salt Lake City as the strongest candidate based on technical merit. The report was used by a special IOC panel to eliminate five other cities in January.
The four finalist cities all were rated capable of staging an Olympics, a big advantage for the IOC, Bach said. "Whatever the result will be, we will have good Games."
It's the candidate cities that are setting the professional tone for the last days of the campaign, he said. "This time, I think all of them understand it's better to run a campaign that's low-key and based on the facts."
IOC member Chiharu Igaya of Japan, who also served on the evaluation commission, agreed. This is what we want, Igaya said. He said that Salt Lake City's strong showing the commission's report helps - to a point.
"Your city probably is well-received because you have practically everything ready. If we asked you to host the Winter Games next year, you could do it. So you have an advantage," Igaya said.
But that's not all the IOC looks at. "Like in the case of Nagano, we didn't have many facilities compared to your bid four years ago," he said. Salt Lake City narrowly lost the 1998 Winter Games to Na-ga-no, Japan.
Igaya, who, of course, backed Nagano's bid, said he understands how Salt Lake bid officials must feel right now. "I was in your shoes four years ago, chewing my nails," he laughed.
"Anyone can win at this point. One other factor is political issues. Many IOC members want the Olym-pics held in different parts of the world, not concentrated in one particular area," Igaya said.
Many here believe the 2002 Winter Games will be sent to North America, because Albertville, France, hosted the 1992 Winter Games, and Lillehammer, Norway, the 1994 Winter Games.
A Sion bid official acknowledged that the only way the Swiss city can win is if the two North American cities, Salt Lake City and Quebec, cancel each other out in the voting.
Sion, which has been described as the likely choice for the 2006 Winter Games, will probably not bid again, said Jean-Michel Gunz, head of international relations for Sion's bid.
It would be difficult to keep the interest of the corporate sponsors who are funding Sion's bid, Gunz said, citing advice he received from Salt Lake bid officials.
"Salt Lake says the first time is champagne, and the second time is beer," Gunz said. Like Salt Lake City, Sion is spending $7 million on its bid. Nearly all of Salt Lake City's bid budget comes from private donations.
And like Sion, Salt Lake bid officials have said the city will not bid again for an Olympics anytime soon. Salt Lake City has bid five times for the Winter Games since the 1960s.
If Salt Lake City is not successful this time, the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta could be the last in the United States for some time. The IOC was told this week that the United States will not bid for the 2004 Summer Games.
Welch, who appeared relaxed after arriving in Budapest on Tuesday, sounded a little more stressed Wednesday. "It's a hectic time right now. There's a lot of pressure being put on by a lot of cities," he said.
The bid committee is trying now to make sure it is the second choice of those IOC members supporting other cities. The IOC members will cast their ballots until one of the four cities gets a majority of votes.
Although one city could win a majority of the 94 votes in the first round of balloting, Welch has said that's unlikely. In each round of voting, the city with the least votes will be eliminated.
"We think it's going to be a very close vote," Welch said.