With South Africa out, who wants in for 2020?

There's ambition. And then there's reality.

When the two collide, you get an announcement like the one Thursday from Johannesburg, the South African government saying it was not going to mount a bid for the 2020 Summer Games.

It's still very, very early in the race for 2020.

But after all-star fields for 2016 and 2012 and a historic choice for 2008, is the  International Olympic Committee looking not only at a comparatively thin field for 2020 but at a campaign dominated by European rivals?

That would make for an intriguing turn in recent Olympic history. Because it's not immediately clear who else wants in.

To be clear, this is not -- repeat, not -- a call for a 2020 entry from the United States.

There are some influential Olympic insiders who say the U.S. ought to get in the game.

Here's the opposing view:

The U.S. Olympic Committee and IOC have far too many issues to be resolved, mostly financial, for that.

Moreover, no bid can win without rock-solid support from its federal government. As the New York 2012 and Chicago 2016 bids underscored, the American system of federalism -- there's the U.S. government but there's also the 50 separate states -- renders such support a complex matter, with contractual and jurisdictional issues galore.

Beyond which, why should the U.S. government want to jump in? The last time the White House was asked for its support, the president of the United States -- for the first time in the more than 100-plus years of the modern Olympic movement -- actually appeared in person at an IOC assembly, in 2009 in Copenhagen. He spoke on behalf of an American bid city, which happened to be his hometown, Chicago. And for what? Chicago was booted in the first round.

Here were the finalists in the last three Summer Games campaigns:

2016: Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Tokyo, Chicago.

2012: London, Paris, Madrid, New York, Moscow.

2008: Beijing, Toronto, Paris, Istanbul, Osaka.

Now here is the list of declared starters for 2020:

Rome.

Right this moment, that's it.

Again, it's super-early. But why aren't more cities eagerly lining up? The Summer Games is, after all, The Franchise.

It's not that there isn't a lot of talk behind the scenes. But it's just that -- talk.

Istanbul -- could be formidable contender but maybe more interested in playing host to European soccer championships?

Dubai -- big financial issues?

Tokyo -- obstacles include Pyeongchang, South Korea's, campaign for 2018 Winter Games as well as the tsunami-, earthquake- and nuclear meltdown-related issues in the northeastern part of the country.

Doha, Qatar -- amazing place, amazing story, but didn't make IOC cut for 2016, purportedly because of heat-related issues, though many close to the movement suspect it's because the Qataris might well have won if they had been allowed to advance to the knock-out round.

Know this: If the Qataris put their minds to it, they can achieve virtually anything they want. A Qatar entry in the 2020 race would alter the dynamic immediately.

That said, a 2020 Games in Doha would be before the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The IOC gave the Games to Brazil in 2016 -- but after the World Cup there, in 2014.

For sure, South Africa staged a winning 2010 World Cup.

And this is key: The World Cup, for all its complexity, is but one world championship.

A Summer Olympics requires the infrastructure and logistics to stage 28 world championships (26 in London next year) -- all going on over 17 days, meaning pretty much at the same time.

Durban, where the IOC will stage the assembly in July at which the 2018 Winter Games city will be selected -- Munich and Annecy, France, are in the race along with Pyeongchang -- had been considered perhaps the likeliest South African bid city.

IOC rules forbid the members from visiting a city bidding for the Games. But if they were there for an IOC assembly -- wow, how clever that would have been to get to see Durban, right?

It would have, though, taken an estimated $4.5 billion, at least, to build the new venues Durban would have needed to stage a Games in 2020. That's money the South African government reasoned would be better spent on basic services.

The Associated Press reported the supply of such essential services was a top issue in last week's local elections in South Africa. Violent demonstrations, it reported, erupted in some communities over the lack of such basics as electricity and running water.

Frankly, saying no now gives South Africa an elegant out. The murmur had already begun in some IOC circles that it wasn't just enough to receive a bid from South Africa; it had to be a world-class bid. Now the South Africans have the luxury of time to put together such a bid.

With only that one declared entry in the 2020 field, it's understandable why that AP report from Johannesburg declared Rome the favorite to land the 2020 Games.

Um -- maybe not so fast.

The unknown is Qatar.

If for whatever reason Doha is not a factor, it surely is within the realm of possibility that the primary beneficiary of South Africa's decision not to run ultimately proves to be -- Madrid.

Madrid was the 2016 runner-up; virtually everything, with the exception of an Olympic village, is built; the financing is pretty much in place; the government support would be solid; the city is fantastic.

What Madrid needs has been missing the past two campaigns is a narrative -- a compelling story. They know now that's what they need.

The prediction here is that Madrid announces sooner than later that it's in.

And then, for 2020, it will be game on.

The ongoing history of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team

William Faulkner once wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past," and perhaps never were more apt words written than as they relate to the 1980 U.S. Olympic team. Five San Diego-area seventh-graders set out this academic year to make a little history of their own, telling the story of that 1980 U.S. team -- forever the team that got left home amid the boycott of the Moscow Games -- in what's called the "Kenneth E. Behring National History Day" contest.

Under the direction of their teacher, 28-year-old Hillary Gaddis, the students from the Day-McKellar Preparatory School in La Mesa, Calif., made it through the local and state rounds and now are en route to the nationals, to be held June 12-16 at the University of Maryland. The contest is a big deal. Here's the website.

Along they way, they managed to get a letter from President Jimmy Carter. The letter brings the past immediately alive.

Indeed, in that letter, the former president undoubtedly will summon in many quarters, yet again, all the emotions that still attend the boycott -- 31 years later.

He writes that to withdraw from the 1980 Summer Games was a "very difficult decision for me…"

He also writes, "Both the Congress and the Olympic Committee voted overwhelmingly not to participate, and I reluctantly agreed with their decision because the Soviet Union had invaded Afghanistan in violation of all reasonable international laws."

The students, as well as Ms. Gaddis, emphasized repeatedly their respect for Mr. Carter and for the office of the presidency.

Nonetheless, a reading of the historical record would strongly suggest that the former president is perhaps not being entirely forthcoming about his role in orchestrating the boycott.

To be clear: That's not the opinion of the Day-McKellar students or Ms. Gaddis or the school.

That's me. But what would any reasonable person conclude from a review of the historical record?

As early as his State of the Union address in January, 1980, for instance, just weeks after the late 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, President Carter declared that "neither the American people nor I will support sending an Olympic team to Moscow."

That February, he said it would be "unconscionable" to send athletes to the capital of another nation "under the aegis of the Olympics" when that nation was "actively involved" in the "invasion of and the subjugation of innocent people."

In April, just days before that U.S. Olympic Committee vote on Carter's call for a boycott, amid an extraordinary variety of political and financial pressures, the president announced he would use "legal action" if necessary to prevent U.S. athletes from going to Moscow.

Three decades later, for him to say he "reluctantly agreed" with the decision -- well, as one of the students, Maxwell Major, 13, said when he read the letter, "I was shocked."

It has, indeed, been a lesson in history -- as well as politics and other endeavors -- for these young people.

The irony can not be lost on anyone that of course it is now American troops who are now in Afghanistan.

In their presentation during the contests, Max portrays a wrestler, Gene Mills, who was 21 in 1980, the greatest 114 1/2-pound wrestler of his time. Mills' shoulder didn't hold up and he didn't get a chance at another Games.

Max said, "When I interviewed him, he said [the boycott] was a stupid and ridiculous decision and he said he couldn't believe they would screw all the athletes who had worked their butts off for years to get this opportunity."

Nick Young, 13, said he has learned how not going to the Games has shaped the lives of those who didn't go. Rowdy Gaines -- a swimmer who not only made the 1984 team but won three gold medals and is now an influential NBC commentator at the Summer Games -- has coined the term "ghost Olympians" for those solely on the 1980 team, Nick said.

There's sadness in that, for sure. According to Nick, though, there's another piece to it, too. Another 1980 swimmer, Glenn Mills (no relation to Gene), had put in countless hours in the pool training in honor of an older brother, Kyle, who had died of cancer. When the Day-McKellar young people called, Glenn Mills said, "Everyone remembers 1980. That makes it special. Makes it unique. If it wasn't for the boycott, you guys wouldn't be talking to me today."

The Day-McKellar team has put in hundreds of hours preparing for nationals. They've done 32 primary source interviews. They have talked to the likes of Mike Moran, the U.S. Olympic Committee's spokesman from 1978 to 2003, who said that he enjoyed the conversation "as much as anything I lived through at the USOC over almost a quarter century."

He added," Their intense interest in the 1980 Olympic team's heartbreak and its stories was inspiring to me, because I had felt most people had forgotten this historic group of American athletes and the loss of their dreams. They have managed to re-awaken those memories and their passion for the subject is special."

You know, the Day-McKellar team -- Nick; Max; Mikela Chatfield, 12; Thomas Day, 12; Allie Shelton, 11 -- could win that contest.

If there really is any karma in the world, on behalf of that 1980 U.S. team -- they will.

--

If you'd like to donate to the Day-McKellar team to help offset the cost of travel to Maryland, call Hillary Gaddis at 858-335-3936 or reach her via email at hillarycecilia@hotmail.com.

Tyler Hamilton says he told the whole truth and nothing but

Of all the things Tyler Hamilton told "60 Minutes," one passage in particular called to me with special clarity. He said, "Well, there's a lot of other cheats and liars out there, too, who've gotten away with it. It's not just Lance, you know? I mean, with a little luck, I'd still be out there today being a cheat and liar."

Over the years, I have been asked far too many times to count whether I think Lance Armstrong doped to win the Tour de France.

My answer consistently has been, one, Armstrong insists he has done nothing wrong and is absolutely entitled to the presumption of innocence and, two, all things in the fullness of time.

Meaning: let's see what time, and the justice system, bring. If anything.

On the occasion of Hamilton's appearance on "60 Minutes," during which he said he was repeating what he told the federal grand jury hearing the Armstrong matter, it is also worth emphasizing that only the United States government, in its pursuit of what it deems justice, has the means to get the truth out of people who otherwise might well be out there being cheats and liars.

In elegant simplicity, that also may explain as much as anything why the government cares about Armstrong.

Has Armstrong done incredible good for cancer patients and their families? Yes.

Is that good premised on his heroism? Yes.

Does that heroism rest on his seven victories at the Tour de France? Yes.

Isn't that heroism predicated on him winning fair and square?

If that's the core question, there's this:

The government cares a great deal indeed about the truth. It is the bedrock of the entire justice system.

Hamilton ended up testifying before the grand jury in Los Angeles only after being subpoenaed -- that is, he had not gone voluntarily. The "60 Minutes" thing -- that was a choice, with which the Armstrong camp found fault.

Watching the screen, I thought of the day in 2005 I sat in Hamilton's living room in Colorado. He and his then-wife, Haven, said they had no idea why the authorities were insisting he had been caught blood doping in September 2004 in Spain, just a couple weeks after he had won a gold medal in the cycling time trial in the Athens Summer Games; legal papers filed in his defense were suggesting the far-out possibility of a "vanishing twin."

It's entirely one thing to sit in your living room and say anything you want to a sportswriter. What's the worst thing that happens? He or she prints it. So what? Stuff gets printed every day. The next day, new stuff gets printed.

When you lie to a federal grand jury, and they catch you at it, you risk going to prison. Ask Marion Jones.

Her case, the Barry Bonds trial, the Roger Clemens case and now this Armstrong inquiry underscore a critical point: Sports officials do not have the power to compel the truth. Only the public authorities do, with subpoenas and matchless financial resource and of course the threat of prison or other consequence.

It's intriguing now to watch Armstrong maneuver. Consider the Twitter post he issued last Thursday, as word broke of Hamilton's upcoming "60 Minutes" appearance: "20+ year career. 500 drug controls worldwide, in and out of competition. Never a failed test. I rest my case."

A bold -- as usual -- public-relations effort.

As the World Anti-Doping Agency's David Howman, emphasizing that he was speaking generally and not about Armstrong or anyone in particular, said Monday, "There's a certain fragility to the testing system, and a sophisticated doper can beat it."

If this ever gets to court, that point would become apparent.

For instance, Hamilton told "60 Minutes" Armstrong used the blood-booster EPO in 1999.

EPO was by then banned. But a test for it wasn't finalized until just before the Sydney Olympics, which took place in September, 2000.

So saying you might have passed x number of tests when y number perhaps didn't include a test for the most relevant illicit substance in recent years in cycling proves -- what?

Beyond which, Armstrong's tests from the 1999 Tour de France itself have been the subject of considerable controversy. The French newspapers have written about them at length. In 2006, when I was at the LA Times, so did I.

In coming forward, Hamilton moved quickly to give up the gold medal he won in Athens.

Moreover, Hamilton has written a letter to his friends and family that says he was a serial doper. You can read it here. In it, he says that his testimony before the grand jury went on for six hours and that telling the panel what he knew felt "like the Hoover dam breaking."

He says in that letter, "I opened up; I told the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And I felt a sense of relief I'd never felt before -- all the secrets, all the weight I'd been carrying around for years suddenly lifted. I saw that, for me personally, this was the way forward."

Another former U.S. Postal Service rider, George Hincapie, reportedly told the grand jury that he and Armstrong supplied each other with EPO and discussed having used another banned substance, testosterone, to get ready for races.

To emphasize: Armstrong has denied any wrongdoing.

Just to think this through:

Would the federal government go to the time, trouble and expense to bring a case against Armstrong and allege merely doping? Does that make sense?

What did it do in the case against Jones? The charges were doping -- and involvement in a bad-check scheme.

Bonds? The charges were perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying to the grand jury during the government's BALCO investigation -- not whether he had taken steroids per se but whether he had lied about using them.

Common sense says the government would want to build a case against Armstrong in which doping, if alleged, is but part of a wider action. How wide? It's mere speculation because grand juries operate in secret: Drug trafficking? Distribution? Conspiracy? Fraud, money laundering or other financial impropriety?

"My Mom and Dad always told me that the truth would set me free," Hamilton wrote in that letter to friends and family. "I never knew how right they were."

America's oldest living Olympian: Walter Walsh, 104

They announced the details of the 2012 Summer Games torch relay earlier this week. If they're smart at the London organizing committee, and they are, and if fortune smiles on him for another year as it has for these past 104, they ought to make sure that Mr. Walter Walsh gets one of the 8,000 or so slots in that relay run.

Mr. Walsh was there, in person, the last time they held the Games in London. That would have been in 1948. He was on the U.S. Olympic team, a member of the American shooting squad. He finished 12th -- just one of many achievements in a life full of accomplishments and memories.

His hearing isn't perhaps what it was. But Mr. Walsh is still pretty damn vital. When I first called his house, in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, to talk to him about the 1948 Olympics and everything he had done and seen in his life, he thought I was a salesman cold-calling him for something he sure as hell didn't want or need at 104. "Cut the BS!" he said before hanging up.

A few minutes later, after one of his sons, also named Walter Walsh -- who happened to be visiting from out of town -- had explained what I was after, and we arranged another call, the senior Mr. Walsh couldn't have been more gracious.

"It's a pleasure to be here to do any damn thing," he said about being 104. "Just as long as I can do it. I don't care much about what it is. I just want to do it."

In some regards, Mr. Walsh's life story reads like something from a super-hero tale.

He was born May 4, 1907 in New Jersey -- he just turned 104 a couple weeks ago and is America's oldest living Olympian. The International Olympic Committee this week launched an inquiry to find out if there's an older Olympian anywhere else in the world.

Mr. Walsh graduated from Rutgers law school.

In 1934, he joined the FBI. Think about that. Just 27, in the midst of the Depression, he was a G-Man -- when the bureau was very much still making its reputation.

He helped make it.

That very same year, 1934, after a shootout that left two FBI agents dead, it was Walsh who -- acting on a tip -- discovered the body of Chicago gangster Baby Face Nelson.

The next year, Mr. Walsh arrested one of the most notorious criminals in the entire United States, Arthur "Doc" Barker. Barker, along with his brother and his mother, "Ma" Barker, were wanted for their role in a high-profile kidnapping. Doc Barker had been trailed, as the story goes, to a Chicago apartment building. Walsh caught him there, unarmed.

At a ceremony commemorating the FBI's 100th anniversary, this is the way Mr. Walsh told the story:

"I asked him, 'Where’s your heater Doc?'

"He said, 'It’s up in the apartment.'

"I said, 'You’re lucky, Doc. Ain’t that a hell of a place for it?' He was ready to be shot if he tried to run. … Lucky for him he didn’t, because he was close enough he’d be hard to miss."

In September, 1937, Walsh was part of a shoot-out between FBI agents and the infamous Brady Gang in Bangor, Maine. The gang had been on a cross-country robbery spree; they had gone up to Maine looking to stock up on weapons and ammo.

In the cross-fire, Mr. Walsh took a bullet in the shoulder. Even so, he was soon back on the job. Alfred Brady, at the time Public Enemy No. 1, was killed.

In World War II, Mr. Walsh joined the Marine Corps. He rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel.

Mr. Walsh's expertise with a gun made him something of a celebrity in shooting circles. He was featured in photo spreads in gun publications, even in Life magazine, as his friends at the FBI have recounted.

For several years, he commanded the Marines' marksmanship unit. He was in the corps when he took part in the 1948 Games.

The war had only been over, of course, for three years.  He said with approval, "London didn't show any major damage from the war," adding, "There was plenty of time for recovery. The British are industrious, hard-working people."

"The '48 Olympics -- he remembers them quite well," his son said, launching into a story that's now family legend about how a British Royal Marine enlisted man had been tasked with driving the American Marine officer around London but was very concerned with how much gasoline was being consumed.

"The young man made some kind of mistake and had to go back 10 or 20 or 30 miles and pick something up -- some team property he had forgotten somewhere. He mentioned to dad, 'When I get back, the old man," meaning the responsible British officer, "is going to skin me alive -- I've burned up all this gasoline.'

"My dad said, 'Don't worry about it, son. We'll buy you the gasoline you need,' and he did. This guy was so impressed with the American shooters. Of course my dad was an active-duty American Marine officer at the time. Dad came home with several Royal Marine berets and distributed them to his sons. And I still have one."

The 1948 Olympics, the son said, "are not that distant to dad."

Once more for emphasis -- World War II had ended just three years prior. "The competition was, as I remember, the usual exchanges of friendship between members of the various teams," Mr. Walsh said. "On some of the teams, I'm thinking of the Germans particularly, they spoke in a broken fashion, better English than we did.

"… You had these people competing -- they were all trying to do the same thing. They were trying to speak to each other with various degrees of difficulty.

"… It brings about a mixture between these people. You get by with stuttering and making hand motions. It was a great experience for me. And I enjoyed it."

Mr. Walsh was married for 43 years; his wife passed away in 1980. They had five children together -- three daughters and two sons. The family counts  17 grandchildren and 23 great-grandchildren.

When the FBI held that 100-year celebration three years back, it was duly noted that Mr. Walsh was a year older than the agency itself.

"My dad is a great guy. Just a great guy," said his son, who is 66, himself a former Marine Corps officer and a businessman, living now in Birmingham, Ala.

"Most of the things I know that are worthwhile I know i know from him ... he was the greatest dad a kid might have. I can tell you my dad is a great dad, and a great guy, and a strong personality, a good leader and a principled, honest, stand-up person. I've seen that in my life.

"… I understand in what regard other people hold my father and I'm a little bit amazed. I still -- I don't ever want to disappoint him."

Dick Ebersol's stunning resignation

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Dick Ebersol's abrupt resignation Thursday as head of NBC Sports is altogether unexpected and, frankly, not. It's also, for those of us who know him, respect him immensely, worked for him and with him, profoundly unsettling. Sad, even.

It raises a whole host of questions -- without immediate answers -- about the London 2012 Olympics, which NBC will televise, and beyond, whether NBC, now merged with Comcast, will aggressively bid for the rights to the 2014 and 2016 Games.

The International Olympic Committee has said it will call American bidders here, to Lausanne, the IOC's headquarters, just 18 days from now, on June 6 and 7, for the 2014 and 2016 auction. The rights to the 2018 and 2020 Games might also be in play. Besides NBC, ESPN and Fox are expected to bid.

The announcement Thursday changes everything.

Or maybe not.

It can be argued that Ebersol is the most important Olympic figure in the United States.

NBC has televised every Summer Games to American homes since 1988; it has broadcast every Winter Games since 2002.

Since he was a teen-ager, the Olympics have been an Ebersol passion. He temporarily  dropped out of Yale to become ABC Sports' first-ever Olympic researcher; that was before the 1968 Winter Games in Grenoble, France.

He had been with NBC since 1989.

In an internal call Thursday with NBC employees, he spoke about walking the halls of the network offices, at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, for more than 20 years. He said he would miss that.

I was a full-time NBC employee for four years -- from 2006 to 2010 -- and a part-time employee for three years before that. I wasn't based at 30 Rock in New York. Even so, the culture that Ebersol created at NBC Sports was everywhere NBC Sports was. He had one hard-and-fast rule: no jerks.

Television and, later, the internet were hard enough and pressure-filled enough without people being jerks to each other. So no jerks.

That was the very best part about working at NBC.

Assuredly, the senior executives who will show up at NBC Sports on Friday morning, just as they did on Thursday, are remarkably talented. Without question, the bid they're going to put together for future editions of the Games is going to be significant.

But without Ebersol, will it be enough?

Canadian IOC member Dick Pound, who in the mid-1990s engineered deals that swung the rights to NBC for multiple editions of the Games, said, "If they come without Ebersol, I guess they just come with a wallet."

NBC and Comcast executives called IOC president Jacques Rogge -- he took the call at 7:20 p.m. here local time -- to assure him that they still fully support the Olympic movement and intend to bid aggressively.

They said the timing of Ebersol's resignation had "nothing to do with the bidding for the Games," Rogge said in a brief interview in a hallway at the Palace Hotel, where the IOC's marketing commission was holding a dinner.

It was a "purely internal issue and Dick took a decision -- and we have to respect it," he said.

That said, Rogge allowed, Ebersol's announcement "was a shock for me."

Perhaps most tellingly, in a culture in which relationships traditionally are everything, Ebersol did not call Rogge in advance of the news breaking out to tell him about the resignation.

Rogge, for his part, said he had already sent Ebersol a letter. But he said Thursday evening -- this was halfway through that marketing commission dinner, which he stepped out of to say a few words to me and to Steve Wilson of the Associated Press -- that he had still not spoken to Ebersol.

Similarly, Ebersol -- who had been a hugely vocal critic of the U.S. Olympic Committee in October, 2009 -- had over the past several months recognized its new leadership, chief executive Scott Blackmun and chairman Larry Probst, with warm words.  Better yet, the USOC and NBC have been doing real business together in recent months.

In that same Palace Hotel hallway Thursday evening, here was Blackmun, standing next to Rogge. He said he had "no inkling" Ebersol was leaving.

"I'm sad," Richard Carrion of Puerto Rico, the IOC's current lead U.S. television rights negotiator, said later Thursday night in the Palace lobby. "I admire him on a professional and personal level."

The fact is, earlier this week Ebersol was still making plans for business calls early next week.

It makes you wonder whether the Ebersol rupture with Comcast transpired with violent speed or just had been a long time coming.

This, too, is true about Ebersol. If he was in charge of something, it was the case that you were going to be doing it his way. Nothing wrong with that.

That said, I don't know if that way is the Comcast way.

I do know this: They're going to be holding the Summer Olympics in London in just a little over 14 months, and Dick Ebersol is not going to be in charge of the NBC broadcast, and that seems almost impossible to comprehend.

"He'll be at the Games," Rogge said. "I'll invite him."

Three bids, 88 members, 49 days to go

LAUSANNE, Switzerland -- Two years ago, Rio de Janeiro's bid team came here and put up a map that showed the Summer Games had never been to South America, a remarkably clever piece of stagecraft that separated Rio from four other contenders and, ultimately, made the case for its stunning win for the 2016 Summer Games. The three cities for the 2018 Winter Games came here Wednesday with movies and charts and Olympic medalists by the score, the two perceived chasers, Munich and Annecy, France, looking for a similar breakout moment to make up ground against the favorite, Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The Koreans came Wednesday with the admittedly "nervous" but nonetheless impressive Yuna Kim, the women's 2010 figure skating gold medalist. And they have their own world map.

That map shows that the Winter Games have been held in Asia only twice, and both times in Japan, in Nagano in 1998 and Sapporo in 1972.

This is the underlying dynamic of this 2018 race, and unless the others wield a compelling argument to the contrary, it's why this arguably is -- and always has been -- the Koreans' race to lose. The IOC will vote July 6 by secret ballot in Durban, South Africa.

The essential 2018 question is whether the forces of history, economics and demographics are -- or are not -- on Korea's side.

To frame it another way: Is the sports world still in the expansionist mode of recent years? Or is 2018 the campaign in which the IOC takes a break and opts for a more traditional locale before venturing forth anew in 2020, 2022 and beyond?

To be clear: The Koreans have a lot going for them. Then again, if they could win, of course they could lose. They have bid twice before for the Winter Games, for 2014 and 2010, and lost both times. Moreover, it's an International Olympic Committee election; by definition, the only thing predictable about an IOC campaign is that it's unpredictable.

Indeed, sometimes it's just flat-out unusual.

One such moment:

At the session Wednesday, held at the Olympic Museum, and formally dubbed a "technical briefing," with each city given a 45-minute presentation window followed by a question-and-answer session, Hicham el Guerrouj, the great Moroccan middle-distance runner who since 2004 has been an IOC member, posed a question during Annecy's time about the arrest in New York on sexual assault charges of French financier Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

IOC president Jacques Rogge promptly ruled the question out of order.

Rogge was not asked about that question at an end-of-the day news conference.

He declared the day a big success: "It was a very good day for the International Olympic Committee because whoever wins will definitely be able to stage very good Games."

He also said, and perhaps he's absolutely right about this, perhaps he's just practicing diplomacy: "It's going to be a close race."

The Koreans, with their tagline about taking the Games to "new horizons," would appear in many regards to be driving the campaign. At the least, the other two bids have felt compelled to respond to the Korean narrative.

"When you choose the Olympic host city, it is about more than just geography," Katarina Witt, the chair of the Munich bid, stunning as ever in a low-cut dress by the Berlin designer Michalsky, told the 88 IOC members on hand, stressing that Munich would deliver full stadiums and "the single greatest experience" of each athlete's life.

It's not just about geography, of course.

Even so, the broad theme of the era in which we are living is writ large.

The nations that through the 1990s played host to major sports events have been giving way in recent years to countries and regions that, logically enough, are saying, it's our turn now.

As a for instance, this is why -- despite what is shaping up to be a comparatively weak field for 2020 -- the U.S. Olympic Committee, even if its revenue and marketing issues with the IOC are resolved, ought to give serious, serious pause before considering an entry.

One theory holds that after ranging afield to new locales -- such as Rio for 2016 -- the IOC needs to park in a safe harbor, such as the U.S., for 2020.

Applying that theory now would deliver 2018 to Germany or France -- after 2014 in Sochi, Russia, where they're building a brand-new Winter Games destination from scratch.

The competing theory is that the Olympic and international sports world is still very much in the midst of turning away from what was and toward what's next.

See, for example: Russia 2014; Brazil 2016 (and soccer's World Cup in 2014.)

Russia, again, for the World Cup in 2018. Qatar, for the World Cup in 2022.

Qatar, again, for the men's team handball world championship in 2015 -- chosen this past January over three European bids, from France, Norway and Poland.

Our world is changing all around us. Just a couple days ago, in an event that went virtually unnoticed in the United States but is big stuff in Europe, with more than 100 million people tuned in to watch the final episode, Azerbaijan, one of the former Soviet republics, won the Eurovision song contest.

Germany was 10th; Britain, 11th. Spain and France finished farther still down the list.

Azerbaijan winning Eurovision -- that underscores a major cultural and economic shift.

Here's another huge economic shift in the making, a point the Koreans have underscored time and again during this 2018 campaign:

By 2030, according to an Asian Development Bank Study, Asia will make up 43 percent of worldwide consumption. From 1990 to 2008, the middle class in Asia grew by 30 percent, and spent an average of an additional $1.7 trillion annually. No other region in the world comes close.

Complicating the 2018 Olympic dynamic, though, is the factor of personality politics.

Thomas Bach, the vice president and presumed IOC presidential candidate in 2013, is leading the Munich bid. He observed Wednesday that "there are cycles of life," a time where "you go to new shores" and another "where you cultivate your foundations."

While the presentations Wednesday were important, the behind-the-scenes politicking now begins in earnest.

"This is a marathon race," Bach said at a news conference. "It's of no importance whether you lead at 22k or 35k or 40k. The only thing that counts is to cross the finish line first, on the 6th of July. After today's presentation and the response, which we can feel, we go into this final stretch of this very special Olympic marathon with full confidence and with all the determination and with all the passion we can have for the Olympic Games in Germany and for winter sports in particular."

Asked where Munich stood at this point in the "marathon," Bach answered, "I don't care. This is, as I said, about winning."

For their part, the French team includes Jean-Claude Killy, the triple 1968 Games ski champion turned sports administrator. Arguably no one within the Olympic movement carries more credibility within winter sports circles. "We think we have nothing to envy the other two propositions," he told reporters after the French had briefed the 88 members.

Later, he said that he supported the bid "very strongly." He also, reading from a paper left over from the German news conference, said, "It says here that 'Munich loves you.' So I just want you to know that we love you, too."

The chairman of the Korean bid, Yang Ho Cho, met reporters immediately after the Pyeongchang presentation ended. In keeping with the Korean message of humility, he said, "The decision is up to the IOC members. We did our best," adding a moment later, "We sent a message of new horizons."

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A quickie and by no means exhaustive summary of the three bids:

-- Munich: One of the world's great cities. Re-purposed 1972 Summer Games venues. Big crowds. Fantastic guaranteed atmosphere. German business underwrites 50 percent of the revenues of the seven sports on the Winter Games program. Germany hasn't hosted the Winter Games since 1936.

-- Annecy: The IOC has had a penchant for staging recent Winter Games in big cities -- Vancouver, Torino, Salt Lake City. What about the mountains? "Authentic" Annecy, amid the world's most iconic mountain range and with a sustainable development plan in mind, is uniquely positioned to take the Winter Games, and mountain communities worldwide, into a 21st-century future.

-- Pyeongchang: Time is not only ripe but right to go to Asia and South Korea to grow the Winter Games, and in a big way. 87 percent national support for 2018 Games. Major national priority. Two prior bids, spent $1.4 billion to build first-class Alpensia resort in what used to be potato fields. "We are keeping our promises to the IOC," former provincial governor and bid leader Jin Sun Kim stressed at news conference.

USOC finances: revenue up, salaries down

When you put competent people in charge and let them do what they know how to do, you get a healthy-looking tax return like the one the United States Olympic Committee made public on Monday morning. Let's face it. Tax returns are, in the main, boring documents. They're black-and-white and full of rows and columns and numbers.

Basically, journalists like to comb through them and pick out salary numbers and go, aha!  Look how much money so-and-so made! That's because, as a rule, journalists don't make anywhere near as much money as the so-and-so's we report on even though we are just as smart as they are, if not smarter (we like to think), and but for our career choices we could be making as much money or more as those so-and-so's if we had only listened to our mothers. As usual, our mothers were right.

Honestly,  that whole process is kind of tired.

What's way more interesting is a macro view of the document, which is formally known as a Form 990. The U.S. government makes an institution like the USOC file it once a year. It comes out every spring.

What this year's version tells you is that, even in a bummer of an economy, the USOC, under the profoundly competent leadership of chief executive Scott Blackmun, and a board of directors led by Larry Probst, is trending in all the right directions. Kudos to them and to the marketing efforts of Lisa Baird and branding efforts of Peter Zeytoonjian.

Revenue (page 10): $250.6 million.

Against expenses (page 11): $191.6 million.

A reminder for any and all who are not familiar with the essential principle of the USOC's financial life. Virtually every other national Olympic committee in the world is supported by its own federal government. Not the USOC. By order of the U.S. Congress, the USOC must be self-supporting. Every dime, every dollar  -- everything -- it gets, it must generate on its own initiative.

Back to the form:

As compared to his predecessor, Stephanie Streeter, Blackmun's compensation is down 49 percent (page 53, and the prior year's Form 990).

Total salaries paid to the chief executive, the chief operating offer, the chief financial officer, the chief marketing officer and the general counsel, as compared to the 2009 totals: down 23 percent (page 53, and the prior year's Form 990).

Same group's total compensation: down 42 percent in 2010 from 2009 (again, page 53, and the prior year's Form 990).

For purposes of this discussion, there is a key difference between salary and total compensation, meaning the full package that includes benefits such as insurance and in some cases relocation assistance.

A couple other notes:

Of the top five independent contractors, three were direct mail companies (page 8). In our internet era, one wonders how much longer that will continue to be the case.

The single largest contributor to the USOC? Logically enough, the city of Colorado Springs, Colo., where the USOC is based ($19.75 million, page 21). The USOC, of course, has moved into a new headquarters building in downtown Colorado Springs.

USA Track & Field got a $4.4 million grant. Lots of national governing bodies get grants -- that's the way the system works. It makes sense that USATF gets the most money, far and away, because it's the glamor sport of the Summer Games. (U.S. Ski  & Snowboard, which rules the Winter Games, justifiably got the second-most, about $3.87 million.) Here's a thought: For $4.4 million, the American relay teams had really better learn to hold on to the batons in London in 2012. There's no excuse.

Just a thought to close. It is indeed the case that $250 million is a lot of money. What, one wonders, do you think the number is on the revenue column at the Chinese Olympic Committee's annual report?

It would be fantastic if Beijing -- and for that matter, every national Olympic committee around the world -- made these same sorts of facts and figures publicly available, wouldn't it?

The good stuff about college sports

The football coach in the sweater vest in Columbus, Ohio, is on the hot seat. The Fiesta Bowl just got itself fined $1 million for a fantastic scandal.

Here in Los Angeles, at the University of Southern California, they know a thing or two as well about football-related, um, irregularities.

But a graduation ceremony Thursday at USC's Galen Center also highlighted a lot of what is right the state of about college athletics in the United States in 2011 even as it underscored, again, a simple fact about college sports and the Olympics.

In many sports, it is still the case that the American university system is the farm team for the U.S. Olympic team.

Among those graduating Thursday: water polo player J.W. Krumpholz. He's a two-time national player of the year, a member of two NCAA championship teams and a 2008 Beijing Games silver medalist.

J.W. stayed at USC this year, earning his degree in communications, even though his athletic eligibility had expired and he had offers to play professionally overseas, one in Montenegro and another in Croatia.

J.W.'s reasoning for staying in school was elemental. Water polo is for now and, assuming good health, for 2012 and 2016, maybe 2020. The degree is forever. "I wanted to set myself up in life and every year I stayed away," playing in Europe, "it would be harder and harder to get it done," he said.

J.W.'s dad, Kurt, a swimmer who once held the world record in the 400-meter freestyle, went to UCLA. Kurt showed up Thursday in a blue-and-gold Hawaiian shirt. J.W.'s mom, Debra, went to UCLA. J.W.'s older sister, Kathryn, went to UCLA. J.W.'s younger sister, Caroline, is a sophomore at UCLA, and has the highest grade-point average on the Bruin water-polo team.

J.W., speaking to the crowd, noted that his childhood and adolescence had been unavoidably filled with "anti-Trojan propaganda." Indeed, he said with a smile that his immediate family, along with other relatives, had "all Bruined their lives … but I love them."

For his part, Kurt had said before the ceremony with a big laugh, "Four Bruins, one Trojan. We are extremely proud of the black sheep that he went back and finished.

"Some of his water polo cronies -- they unfortunately never really graduated. As I told him, if you go to Europe, we will work it out. He said, I want to finish. I want to graduate. I want to have closure."

Family, fun, dreams, hope and inspiration -- this was the stuff of Thursday's graduation.

"Sure, it sounds hokey and trite," USC athletic director Pat Haden said before it all got underway. "But it's not."

Lizette Salas, the daughter of Latino immigrants, the nation's No. 2-ranked golfer on the top-ranked women's golf team in the country, soon to become a four-time All American, is the first member of her family to earn a college degree (in sociology). She learned the game from her dad, a machinist at a golf course in Azusa, east of Los Angeles.

Pro golf is next. She told the crowd, "It doesn't matter where you come from. Dreams can come true if you work hare and have faith in yourself."

Even if, as it did in Tim McDonald's case, it takes 25 years.

McDonald, one of the greatest defensive backs players in USC history, a two-time All-American in 1985 and 1986 who went on to star in a 13-year career in the NFL, first at Arizona, then San Francisco, winning a Super Bowl with the 49ers. He is now a high school coach in Fresno; his son, T.J., is currently USC's starting safety.

Tim left USC early to play pro ball. He came back over this past year to complete his bachelor's degree in communications, driving down from Fresno three times a week.

"I've been in the business of kids," he said before the ceremony started. "I've coached kids, mentored kids. A lot of kids I've worked with over the past 10 years didn't understand the value of college. To be honest, I felt a little hypocritical.

"And to be honest, my mom was a little disappointed.

"And I've got three kids. They didn't breathe without me talking about education. I'd be darned if I'd have them go, 'I've got mine -- where's yours?' "

Finally, they gave a special award Thursday to the legendary Louis Zamperini, now 94, who at age 19 ran in the 5000 meters in the 1936 Summer Games in Berlin, finishing eighth.

In World War II, he survived a plane crash at sea, then a hellish 47-day ordeal on the water, then a brutal 2 1/2-year captivity in a Japanese prison camp. The story is chronicled in the current best-seller, "Unbroken."

For all that, this is a USC guy through and through. He wore a sportcoat and a USC baseball cap to the lectern.

"Young people," he said, "often ask me this question: 'Did you ever think about dying on the life raft?'

"No, I never thought about dying. I was too focused on living. I think you can apply that to athletics. My brother taught me to never think about losing -- always think about winning." And then he said, because this is what they say at USC, "Fight on!"

They gave him a standing ovation.

--

Disclaimer: USC announced recently I'm going to start teaching a sportswriting class next year at its Annenberg school. This column has nothing to do with that.

Aaron Peirsol, swim ambassador and waterman

Now that he's retired from competition, all of 27 years old, we can let you in on a little secret about Aaron Peirsol, the greatest backstroke swimmer the United States of America ever produced. It has always been one of the great joys of journalism to write about Aaron, winner of seven Olympic medals, five of them gold.

Win or lose, Aaron has always gracious, thoughtful, passionate. Any competition was better because Aaron was there, big or small. Especially small. That's when you really got a chance to talk to him -- and even in the weirdness of what's called the "mixed zone," where athletes and reporters mingle, the breadth and depth of his interests would inevitably surface, anything and everything from politics and current events to literature to his zeal for environmental protection.

Even at the biggest of the big meets he was a champ, and in the biggest sense of that word. At the world championships two years ago in Rome, when he didn't qualify for the finals of the 100-meter backstroke, a race he had essentially owned, he straight-up said it was his own fault. He didn't pout. He came back and won the 200 back, and broke his own world record.

Aaron formally announced his retirement earlier this year, and as they say, one door closes and another opens. Now the sport has on call one of the greatest ambassadors you could ever ask for. And the man is totally willing.

His message: swimming is more than just up and down, back and forth, in a pool, looking down at that black stripe.

Swimming is about water, and our planet is water, and water is life itself.

"If I could get each swimmer on the [U.S.] national team one thing," Aaron was saying the other day, "it would be a pair of body-surfing fins.

"Get out there and have fun. Don't lose perspective on why you do this."

Training for the Olympics can, let's face it, be a grind. But the fact is, that kind of training imbues dozens if not hundreds of hometown standouts with an enviable skill set. That's a simple message that Aaron is trying to get other elite swimmers to try to better understand.

Because if they can understand it -- it stands to reason that they can pass that message along.

This is, actually, the way it works. Aaron grew up looking up at the guys who seemed larger than life -- the guys who already knew how to handle the famed Wedge in Newport Beach, California, one of the world's most famous spots for surfing of all sorts. He started in the Junior Lifeguard program in Southern California. At 17, he and his buddies were big enough, good enough and one day confident enough to tackle the Wedge on their own.

Now he's the one with the message. Again, this is how it all works, and how it's supposed to work.

"It's so great to be able to understand that even when you're done with swimming in the pool you have the ability to experience something, to take it to another level -- to use this skill and ability to take it to a level that maybe few people can, to understand that you have a gift. It's just the tip of the iceberg for so many swimmers.

"So many guys on the national team are like, 'I'm never going in the ocean.' I'm like, 'You're joking.' That's why we do this -- so you can get thrown around and be active and explore a little bit with what you can do out there."

Just a couple examples:

This past weekend, in Florida, Aaron took part in an open-ocean race held in honor of Fran Crippen, the American swimmer who died in a race last October in Dubai.

In February, on the North Shore of Oahu, Aaron was among those who took part in the 2011 Pipeline Bodysurfing Classic. Sure, some of those there knew who he was. But the way to earn credibility in that crowd is to do what comes naturally to Aaron Peirsol -- to move with humility and to treat everyone and everything around you, and in particular the ocean, with respect.

"This competition was my first at Pipeline," he said. "I was hesitant because I hadn't gone out a week in advance and practiced, or anything like that. I had only gotten there the night before. I went out early that morning and I was just trying to be as humble as I could be.

"It was so much fun. The waves were such pretty waves. They were just as perfect as could be. You get in the wave and you pick a line and it just shoots you out. It was a good-sized day -- none of it was too big or too scary. Everyone was just having fun.

"For me it was felt so good. It felt like home in my own way. It was nice."

He said, "I would just love to see -- I would just love to have swimmers understand what they have."

Pyeongchang's 2018 evaluation report win

In the old days of the Soviet Union, experts from afar used to watch the grand parades ever so carefully. They would carefully parse the reviewing stand to see which dignitaries were seated next to which generals. That way they might be able to figure out what might really be going on behind the Iron Curtain. It's much the same in trying to divine the real meaning of the International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission reports.

There is, actually, a method to it. It's all nuance. It's not just what is said but how.

Such a close read of the document issued Tuesday makes plain that Pyeongchang, the perceived front-runner all along in the 2018 race, got the best marks, cementing the Korean bid's status heading into next week's pivotal briefing before the full membership at IOC headquarters in Lausanne.

The evaluation commission went to lengths to praise Munich and Annecy, France, too.

But it's the way the praise for Pyeongchang was written, and the way perceived obstacles deflected, that proved so key.

For instance, tensions on the Korean peninsula? Not to worry. Such tensions have existed for 60 years, the report said, adding that "Pyeongchang and the region can be regarded as a safe and low-risk environment for the Games."

Compact venue plans? Check.

Land required for the Games? Roger that.

Public support? "No apparent opposition to the Games." Indeed, the report said, an IOC poll shows support for the Games at 87 percent across Korea, 92 percent in Pyeongchang.

Federal backing? The Korean government assured the IOC that hosting the Games was a national priority.

And then this, probably the most significant sentence in the full report: "Overall, the commission believes the legacy from a 2018 Pyeongchang Games, building on existing legacies from previous Olympic Winter Games bids, would be significant to further develop winter sport in Asia."

Disclaimer: Nothing is predictable in an IOC election. Just ask Paris, the perceived 2012 Summer Games front-runner. Paris lost to London in the final round of voting in 2005.

Further disclaimer: The evaluation report is not nearly as important as the meeting next week in Lausanne and, at the risk of being obvious, the IOC session in July, in Durban, South Africa, at which the 2018 vote will be taken.

Even so: What the evaluation commission report can do is offer members a safe harbor. That is -- a rationale, if they want one, for voting a particular way.

For instance, this from the summary section of the 2016 evaluation commission document: "A Rio 2016 Games aims to showcase Brazil's and Rio's capabilities, social and economic development and natural features."

Like the sentence about Pyeongchang and legacy -- that just radiates sunny optimism.

Compare this from the summary section about Chicago's 2016 bid. The "well-designed and compact" athletes' village would be a "special experience." But transport, in a city where the el train takes people everywhere, was somehow thought to be a "major challenge."  Temporary venues, which the bid committee had played up as a clever innovation, "increases the element of risk." Worst of all, Chicago 2016 had not at press time provided the necessary finance guarantees and "the commission informed the bid that a standard Host City Contract applied to all cities."

Thud. And you wonder why, among other reasons, Chicago got just 18 votes and was bounced in the first round?

It's not the "technical" stuff itself. It's more the way those elements contribute to the perception of a bid that sometimes starts sweeping the membership.

To be clear, this 2018 report -- like its predecessors -- absolutely does not rank the cities. The report presents the race as a three-horse derby, saying "each city's concept offers a viable option to the IOC though the very nature of each project presents different risks."

Again, though, when the report gently -- or as in the case of Chicago, not so gently -- points out challenges, that's when you have to ask, why? Of all the things the commission could point out, why this? And how did this come about?

In Munich's case, the report was -- no question -- positive, as it should have been, given that many of the 1972 Summer Games venues would be re-used for the Winter Games; the allure of Munich itself, one of the world's most dynamic cities; and avid German crowd and financial support for winter sports. But then this:

"There is some opposition to the bid at the local level," the report said, and the IOC opinion poll fixed public support for the Games at 60 percent in Munich, 53 percent in Bavaria and 56 percent nationally.

Poll numbers in the 50s and 60s? Uh-oh.

Munich bid leaders say their own poll now shows a 75 percent nationwide approval rating.

For its part, Annecy got way better marks in this report than in a survey several months ago, the commission even citing the Annecy vision of being a "catalyst and a model for sustainable development in the mountain region."

Nonetheless, the report said, Annecy still faces basic logistical issues, including a "relatively spread out" system of athlete villages that would pose "operational and transport challenges" for coaches and athletes.

It's all right there. You just have to know how to read it.

As ever with the IOC members, however, you don't know if they do read these reports. After all, this one runs to 119 pages.

Like trying to decipher generals from potentates at the old-style parades,  there has to be a better way -- but that's a column for another day, perhaps after the vote this coming July.