Chicago gets tips on 2016 Olympics

CHICAGO -- Chicago Olympics organizers can turn to some big names with proven track records for advice on how to win the selection process and then run the 2016 Summer Games.

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney rescued the scandal-plagued 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, former baseball commissioner Peter Ueberroth ran the profitable 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and is chairman of the U.S. Olympic Committee, and Masters tournament chief Billy Payne helped Atlanta win the 1996 Summer Games over Athens, Greece, the Olympics' birthplace.

Their advice was simple: make friends on the International Olympic Committee, train many volunteers and don't do it for the money.

"I hope people don't think it's a big moneymaker and a source of economic development and good for business, because that's not what the Olympics is about," Romney said. "The Olympics is about an opportunity to serve the world and to welcome the world."

Chicago is new to the Olympic selection process, and the Chicago 2016 organizing committee can learn plenty from both the successes and failures the three American cities experienced.

Ueberroth said Chicago's high-profile mayor -- whom he described as "shake your hand, make a promise, keep a promise" -- is key to the city's efforts to build trust among the IOC members and eventually win the 60 votes needed to get the Games.

Other cities competing for the 2016 Games so far are Doha, Qatar; Madrid, Spain; Tokyo; and Baku, Azerbaijan. The IOC will pick a host city in 2009.