Olympics 5-0 İstanbul

İstanbul first tasted defeat in trying to host the Olympic Games on Sept. 23, 1993. Twenty years later, once more in September, it suffered its fifth and bitterest setback of all.
 
For the vote, all three cities ensured that their country's prime ministers were present in Buenos Aires to provide political support for their bids. A minor factor, however, that might well have had an impact on the final stages of the voting was the presentation made fluently in both official languages of the Olympics by Princess Takamado of Japan.
 
IOC Voting
 
City             Round 1               Runoff                  Round 2
 
Tokyo             42                          -                            60
 
İstanbul          26                         49                         36
 
Madrid           26                          45                           -
 
Best opportunity so far
 
The reason why this particular defeat has had such a deep impact on the Turkish soul and character relates to the situation of Turkey's rivals. At no time did İstanbul enjoy the advantages it did for 2020. If the National Olympic Committee of Turkey had written the following scenario at any time since 1993, no one would have believed it:
 
• İstanbul would face only two rival cities. For the 2000 and 2008 Olympics there were five candidate cities bidding.
• Turkey would have a vibrant economy outperforming most EU member states, including France, Britain and Germany, with its gross domestic product (GDP) targeted to reach $2 trillion and make the country a top 10 world economy by 2023.
•Turkey would create, nationally, 4.7 million new jobs in four years (2009-13);
•Launch plans for a multi-billion dollar third airport for İstanbul;
•Upgrade İstanbul's city transport, highlighted by three new Bosporus crossings and extensive improvements in public transport, including heavy rail, motorway, bus and tram lines;
• Make $500 million in annual investments in sports participation and development programs;
• Invest $2.5 billion to build 693 new community sports facilities and 25 stadiums.
• One of its rivals would suffer a catastrophic earthquake and tsunami, leading to meltdowns at three reactors in a nuclear power plant 150 miles away from the candidate city.
• The nuclear plant's operator would acknowledge that tons of radioactive water were leaking from storage tanks used to cool the reactors, raising serious fears that the contaminated water was seeping into surrounding areas and getting out of hand.
• The city would have already hosted the Olympic Games before.
•The other host city, despite having completed 80 percent of its Olympic venues, would be the capital of a country that was suffering from a double-dip recession.
•Its unemployment would be hovering at 30 percent, with youth unemployment (for those under 25) at more than 50 percent.
• Its credit ratings would fall three times in just over a year.
• It would ask for and receive 100 billion euros worth of loans to avoid bankruptcy, with housing prices in free fall.
• Another city from the same country would have hosted the games 20 years ago.
In 2000 or 2008 anyone reading this would have accused the authors of dabbling in literary fiction; nothing could be so far-fetched. As incredible as it is, all of the above are accurate summaries of where the three cities stand today. If this is so, then how can one explain why İstanbul lost the bid to host the 2020 Olympics?
 
Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
 
When the best candidate fails to win, one's attention turns to other factors. For example, in a three-vehicle race, if a tractor comes third, a sports car second and a family sedan first, the specifications of the vehicles explain only part of the story. What matters more are the skills of the drivers. A Formula One driver in an average car will inevitably overtake a young mother in charge of a faster sports car.
 
How is it then that a two-man boat can outpace a four-man boat? The latter could be made of fiberglass, but what matters more is the quality of those rowing the former. Better drivers or rowers can overtake favorites who have more powerful equipment. It requires considerable skill and experience to be in charge, to motivate and to cross the finish line first.
 
Five times in a row the Turkish Olympic movement has failed its final exam. If a student who has excellent grades in many other subjects consistently fails in one subject, then something must be wrong. Either the student is not concentrating or the teacher is below average. Some may well accuse the examiners of being involved in foul play, but that is always the easiest excuse. It is far better to look inside to ascertain where there are deficiencies and how they can be improved.
 
Rerum cognoscere causas
 
This is precisely what the National Olympic Committee of Turkey needs to do. It should immediately establish an autonomous investigation into why the 2020 bid failed. Such an exercise needs to discover the causes of the failure rather than get involved with personalities and their individual actions. Needless to say, if democratic organizations are truly democratic both in spirit and in action, leaders who fail to deliver always tender their resignations before they are asked, or forced to do so, by their peers.
 
Be that as it may, an investigation must evaluate in full the whole process of the recent bid, the procedures utilized, the advice sought, how inclusive it was, what alternatives were rejected, which strategy was preferred, how it was formulated and so on and so forth. Such a task is not easy. It can neither be rushed nor painless. If it is quickly pushed through, carefully avoiding stepping on toes, it will do a disservice to the Turkish Olympic movement. Such an exercise will lay the groundwork for a sixth failure rather than a first victory.
 
In this investigation, individuals who are not associated with the bid must form the committee so as to put a stop to probable accusations of conflicts of interest. The goal of this endeavor is less to punish failure than to discover a winning formula for the future. What matters is to not have a repeat of the same outcome. Quite obviously İstanbul is extremely poor in this regard, as it has failed continuously. It is this that needs to stop.
 
One needs to always bear in mind that an Olympic bid is after all primarily a public relations exercise that has many challenges. One of these can be categorized as competition in the form of the many other cities that are vying to host. Some others are the many target groups of all different types and sizes that must be reached out to; the initial euphoric interest that must be sustained over a long period of time; procedures and actions that have to be as transparent as possible; the ability to fully comprehend complex mechanisms such as the secretive decision-making process; the preparation of a game plan to convince both officials and well-known personalities to actively support the bid; and the capacity to merge a national outpouring of enthusiastic support with the outside world, understanding the depth of desire and acceptance of a professional bid. All of these and more have to be provided for.
 
Explanations
 
Two ex-ministers with different political allegiances have shared their thoughts as to why İstanbul failed. Ex-Minister of Culture Ertuğrul Günay identified five key reasons:
 
1. Transport infrastructure
 
2. Deficiencies in arts complexes
 
3. Lack of measures taken to combat a future earthquake
 
4. Doping scandals
 
5. Syrian crisis
 
An ex-foreign minister, Professor Mümtaz Soysal, related the loss to Turkey's lack of medals in multiple sports. The country's first-ever gold in athletics, won in London last year, has already been tainted by the winner being embroiled in another doping case. He remarked that most observers and those involved focused on the benefits of the Olympics, especially on foreign policy, tourism and city planning. It was this concentration that led to a fiasco for Turkish foreign policy, with national prestige suffering a serious setback.
 
Soysal believes that it will be interesting to find out exactly how many billions of dollars Turkey spent on trying to win the race to host the Olympics. How much did the mass meetings and marketing committees traveling to and from far-away countries add up to?
 
Time to act
 
In the final analysis, all Turks expect the National Olympic Committee of Turkey to take the bull by the horns and stand firm in their quest to find out the structural reasons for failing yet again, while reiterating both their desire and relentless efforts to successfully bring the Olympics to İstanbul on the sixth attempt.
 
Therefore, fresh faces and new blood need to replace the old. To use an athletic analogy, İstanbul keeps on dropping the baton on the final relay exchange; it needs a new and dynamic athlete with no personal experience of loss, who has trained hard, prepared well and is ready to burst through to the finish. For this to happen, a new team needs to be assembled that, instead of burying the harsh lessons of the past in the sands of failure, uses them as a guide for the successful bid of the future.