Guest columnist
Road to Beijing starts in Puget Sound

By Bob Walsh
Special to The Times

Bob Walsh, president and CEO of the Seattle Organizing Committee

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In June, Seattle-area residents will have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch many of the same elite Olympians who won medals in Athens compete at venues throughout Puget Sound during the USA-China Sports Summit. The eyes of the world will then be on Seattle and the surrounding region.

Our community has the honor of hosting a series of Olympic and Paralympic sports, arts and cultural exchanges leading up to the Beijing Olympics.

In Athens, I met with the leaders of the Olympic movements from the United States, China, Canada, Japan, Korea, Russia, Mexico and New Zealand.

These countries will send their best athletes to compete in track and field, gymnastics, cycling, speed skating, volleyball, archery, basketball, swimming, diving and softball.

Many of the people now leading these groups were here for the 1990 Goodwill Games and had exceptionally good experiences. The Goodwill Games showcased Seattle in the international spotlight and brought revenue and great enthusiasm to our region.

We expect the USA-China Sports Summit to reap the same positive benefits.

The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) approached the nonprofit Seattle Organizing Committee (SOC) about a series of summits leading up to the Beijing Games in 2008. Jim Dwyer, chairman of the SOC, who pulled together an effective board of directors, and Jim Scherr, the executive director of the USOC, announced "The Road to Beijing" at a press conference at the Port of Seattle on July 27.

The USOC is committed to making this an important international, multisport event. This will be the first event of this kind in the U.S., and I can report from my meeting in Athens that there is very strong support from the Pacific nations to make this an event of the highest quality. Six of the top medal-winning countries at Athens will bring their best athletes to the summit.

One reason the USOC selected metropolitan Seattle was that it wanted an arts and cultural exchange to be an integral part of the experience, and no region of the nation has a deeper commitment to the arts and international exchange than ours.

The arts festival in 2005 will include contemporary music, dance, film, literary arts, visual arts and circus arts. Each has rich and varied traditions in the U.S. and in China, where some of the most interesting and innovative new work is happening.

Because this event is planned to continue in 2006 and 2007, a foundation will be established in 2005 for an ongoing International Arts Festival.

The Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the National Bureau of Asian Research's Center for Health and Aging are working, in cooperation with the Seattle Organizing Committee, on the Pacific Rim Health Summit. New advances in technology hold out the promise of realizing a long-held dream: maintaining health and managing the risk of disease by focusing on individual susceptibility, prevention and early detection.

A major youth-exchange initiative will integrate proven educational strategies and widely-accessible communication technologies and will include Internet-based projects and a Youth Leadership Summit, with the goals of developing excellence and international cooperation.

As the focus of the world turns to the Beijing Olympics, there will be an annual spotlight on our community. We are in a unique position to contribute to the Olympic movement.

The Emerald City and the region will have an opportunity, once again, to sparkle before the eyes of the world. It is important that local leaders strongly support the efforts of the Seattle Organizing Committee, the USOC and the Chinese Olympic Committee. Thousands of local residents will serve as volunteers and again demonstrate the hospitality for which we are famous.

The road to Beijing: It starts here.

Bob Walsh is president and CEO of the Seattle Organizing Committee, which is planning the USA-China Sports Summit June 8-12 in Seattle, Federal Way, Tacoma, Redmond and Everett, among other venues.