Pleased with trials, city eyes more

Flush with the success of the 2008 U.S. Olympic gymnastics trials, Philadelphia officials will now turn their attention toward landing an event in advance of the 2010 Winter Games.

"Obviously, we can't do skiing or ski-jumping," said Jess Myers, director of Olympic opportunities for the Philadelphia Sports Congress. "But we're very interested in hosting the short-track speedskating trials or maybe some other sport."

Joe Torsella, co-chairman of the Philadelphia Olympic and International Sports Project, noted that the gymnastics event intensified the city's interest in bidding for a future Summer Olympics.

"We were planning on making another bid to host the Olympic Games before this, but this experience only heightens our excitement," Torsella said.

Overall, more than 41,000 fans attended the four sessions of the trials, which concluded Sunday night at the Wachovia Center before 14,920 fans.

Myers said officials were still crunching the numbers but that she expected that the number of hotel rooms filled for the event would be higher than anticipated and that the estimate of a $15 million to $20 million economic boost for the city might also have been conservative.

Myers acknowledged that the city probably ought to have hosted a few more trials before it made its failed effort to become the American city bidding for the 2016 Summer Games. Chicago won that competition.

Doing so, she said, would have allowed the city to introduce itself and its facilities to more national and international Olympic officials.

"We probably went about it backward," she said.

Toward that goal, Myers said, Philadelphia will be hosting a meeting of the International Federation of Rowing Associations, that sport's governing body, in November 2009.

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