Witness to worlds vote: Sacto was losing at one point
John Schumacher of the Sacramento Bee wrote a wonderful account of the General Assembly vote at Riccione in the 2011 worlds contest. John, a respected track writer, made only one booboo — referring to the “WMA Council” as the deciders. No matter. The best nugget was this: “The voting . . . in Riccione provided some suspense, with each vote read aloud and put in a pile for either Sacramento or Porto Alegre. At one point, (John) McCasey said Porto Alegre held a slight lead. ‘I was absolutely just sick to my stomach at 35-33; My God, we’re going to lose to this bid,’ McCasey said. ‘They (then) rattled off Sacramento 30 straight times.’ ”
Here’s the whole SacBee story:
Masters meet is coming here
The track event is for athletes 35 and older and will be held in July 2011.
By John Schumacher – Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PDT Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Sacramento beat out Porto Alegre, Brazil, Tuesday to land the 2011 World Masters Athletics Championships, an international track and field event for athletes 35 and older.
The WMA Council voted 69-39 for Sacramento, which emphasized the athletes and its experience in hosting major events in its bid. The capital city hosted the U.S. Olympic Track and Field Trials in 2000 and 2004 and the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2003, 2005, 2006 and 2007.
This year’s WMA Championships, which conclude Saturday in Riccione, Italy, attracted more than 9,000 athletes from 90 countries. Sacramento officials estimate an economic impact of $14 million for the event, scheduled for July 7-17, 2011, at Sacramento State, Sacramento City College and Folsom High School.
“It was all about what’s best for the athletes; that’s how we presented it,” John McCasey, executive director of the Sacramento Sports Commission, said in a phone interview from Rome. “We used our experience.”
Sacramento drew positive reviews in hosting the 2000 and 2004 U.S. Olympic Trials, with the eight-day meet averaging 23,338 spectators in 2000 and 21,529 in 2004. The city also hosted the NCAA meet four times, with a high attendance average of 7,750 in 2003.
McCasey, whose group lost the bidding for the 2008 U.S. Olympic Trials to Eugene, Ore., said Sacramento has submitted a bid to host the USA Outdoor Track and Field Championships in 2009 and 2010.
He emphasized that the Masters meet will not be a spectator-driven event, with the revenues generated largely from athletes’ entry fees.
“It’s for 12 days, so it brings a tremendous amount of business,” McCasey said. “These kind of pieces of business don’t come along very often.
“The masters stuff is big around the world.”
The voting by the WMA Council in Riccione provided some suspense, with each vote read aloud and put in a pile for either Sacramento or Porto Alegre. At one point, McCasey said Porto Alegre held a slight lead.
“I was absolutely just sick to my stomach at 35-33; My God, we’re going to lose to this bid,” McCasey said. “They rattled off Sacramento 30 straight times.”
McCasey said American River College might also be used for the event.
3 Responses
With all due respect to John’s account (I was sitting close), I noticed that the scrutineers had sorted the votes before they started handing them one-at-a-time to the count. They handed one from one pile and then one from another pile. It seemed neck and neck until the Brazil votes ran out. The USA bid blew Brazil’s out of the water.
Funny – it took 40 minutes out of my life (and time on the beach) to figure out how to mark a ballot with two cities on it!!!!!
Split schedule will be needed due to the heat in sacramento in July. There should be no races, or at least no races over 800m between 12-6PM
Had Brazil won – a split schedule would have been necessary too – it is NOT cool there in January!
Puerto Rico did a good job of scheduling events around heat — perhaps Sacramento should look at their schedule! Do not look at Charlotte for an idea of how to deal with heat — unless one learns by negative example.
I am looking forward to Sac in 2011 – will be near the bottom of my age group – always nice – and close to home – Sac deserved to win – the Brazil proposal was a sad joke.
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