Saudi Prince on Olympic committee would like to see Chicago get Games

An International Olympic Committee member visiting Colorado Springs said Monday that Chicago is his top choice to host the 2016 Summer Games.

Saudi Arabian Prince Nawaf Faisal Fahd Abdulaziz gave the nod to the Windy City after he toured the Olympic Training Center on a one-day visit coordinated by the Colorado Springs Sports Corp.

“Chicago will have a great chance,” Abdulaziz said through a translator at El Pomar Foundation. “Chicago is going to be able to organize a great Olympics.”

In April, the U.S. Olympic Committee picked Chicago over Los Angeles as its applicant city for the 2016 Olympics and Paralympics, impressed with proposed venues not far from Lake Michigan and resounding financial guarantees.

The IOC will choose among the international candidates in October 2009. Other expected bidders include Madrid, Spain; Prague, Czech Republic; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and Tokyo.

Also Monday, Abdulaziz, president of the executive board of the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee, said he and USOC officials agreed in principle to “create some sort of program in the next few months.”

Abdulaziz said the handshake agreement features a youth exchange program and allows Saudi sports officials access to digital video cameras, TVs and computers recently installed at the OTC.

“There are so many benefits from both sides,” Abdulaziz said. “We want to make sure the people who go through the pipelines, our athletes, maybe end up at schools here and benefit from the athlete development.”

Said USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel: “We share a common interest in growing participation in the Olympic movement worldwide. ... He had several concepts that he shared with us and asked us to consider partnering, and that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”

Abdulaziz, 28, took a tour of the OTC and El Pomar Foundation, then had dinner at The Broadmoor hotel with USOC chief executive officer Jim Scherr, former USOC president Bill Hybl and Patrick Ryan, chairman of the Chicago 2016 bid committee, among others.

An IOC member since 2002, Abdulaziz serves as vice president of the Saudi Arabian Football Federation, the country’s national governing body for soccer.

The Saudi Arabian men’s soccer team, which is 61st in the FIFA rankings, has qualified for the World Cup four straight times and has won the Asian Cup three times. It has not qualified for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Saudi Arabia has won two medals in eight Summer Olympics: Hadi Souan Somayli took silver in the 400-meter hurdles and Khaled Al-Eid took bronze in an equestrian event at the 2000 Sydney Games.

A Saudi woman never has competed in the Olympics. Abdulaziz disputes Internet reports that most Saudi women don’t participate in sports and that those who do play aren’t allowed in the same games as men.

“There’s nothing that prohibits women in my country from participating,” Abdulaziz said. “The concept painted by people outside Saudi Arabia about women in Saudi Arabia, it’s not like reality. Things have changed a lot.”