Olympics
Walsh busy preparing for USA-China Sports Summit in Seattle

By Blaine Newnham
Seattle Times associate editor

Bob Walsh predicts 800 athletes will compete.

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ATHENS — Bob Walsh stepped out of an obscure building at the end of a small street, a building that in the middle of a festive city strangely had no name or flag on it.

This was the USA House.

"They want it that way," said Walsh, the Seattle promoter who was meeting with U.S. Olympic officials about next summer's USA-China Sports Summit in Seattle.

Walsh was staying on one of the U.S. cruise ships in the harbor near Piraeus, one bearing a Greek flag. He revealed that the countries and the sports have been firmed up for the event in Seattle June 8-20, 2005.

"For sure, we have the U.S., China, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Mexico and Russia," he said.

"I've been blown away by the interest from both countries and sports. There seems to be a real need for this event."

Walsh is predicting 800 athletes will be in Seattle, housed in cruise ships in Elliott Bay.

Unlike the Goodwill Games that were held in Seattle in 1990, the summit will have the full backing of the U.S. Olympic Committee, which will allow the use of the Olympic rings in advertising and promotion.

"They came to us," said Walsh. "It was just after we had bid for the national Special Olympics and lost it to Ames, Iowa."

Walsh said that so far, the sports that will be contested are volleyball, speedskating, softball, cycling, track and field, men's basketball, archery and swimming and diving.
 
"Rowing has come to us and wants to be included. So does field hockey," he said. "The Russians want baseball."

The USOC will probably cap the number of sports, but Walsh isn't sure what that will be.

He met later in the afternoon with Tom Jernstedt, the president of USA Basketball. He said the indication is that basketball will be limited to players 19 and under, unlike the use of NBA players in the Olympics.

The idea would be to stage preliminary rounds in basketball throughout Puget Sound and have the finals at KeyArena.

His committee continues to look for a site to hold the track-and-field competition. Husky Stadium is unavailable because UW has graduation that weekend.

"We've looked at West Seattle, we've even looked at building a new track with 5,000 permanent seats and then adding 15,000 bleacher (seats) for the competition," Walsh said.

"There is lots to do."

Blaine Newnham: 206-464-2364 or bnewnham@seattletimes.com.