Special Olympics official tours Boise-area sites

Local News - The Idaho Statesman - Always Idaho: "It may be another week before Idaho is invited to bid to host the 2009 Special Olympics World Winter Games, but local organizers are more optimistic than ever about their chances after showing a Special Olympics International executive around Boise Monday.

'Everything we've learned today has just strengthened my conviction that we can and will do this,' said Jim Grossman, who is leading the effort with his wife, Pirie, and Special Olympics Idaho officials.

The Grossmans sparked the idea last month for Idaho to host the 2013 World Winter Games, but when they learned Sarajevo had canceled plans to host the 2009 Games, they accelerated their plans.
On Monday, they showed World Games Operations Director Jon-Paul St. Germain various sites around Boise, including Bogus Basin, Qwest Arena, Taco Bell Arena and other Boise State University facilities, and Boise Centre on The Grove, which would serve as the Olympic Village for the Games. The group headed to Tamarack Monday night and will return Tuesday to look at Idaho Ice World.

St. Germain said he would return to Special Olympics headquarters in Washington, D.C., to compare Idaho's venues to other potential hosts. He'll decide in about a week whether Idaho has the basic requirements to submit a formal bid, but until then, he declined to say how the Gem State compared with the competition.
'We've got to go back and go through the process,' he said overlooking cross country ski trails at Bogus. 'It is a beautiful location, I can say that.'

Other communities competing to host the Games are Reno/Tahoe and cities in Germany and Poland. The Winter Games, held in 2005 in Nagano, Japan, and in Anchorage in 2001, would draw an estimated 2,500 athletes and tens of"