KEY POINTS:
GUATEMALA CITY - Russian president Vladimir Putin's personal intervention to help secure the 2014 Winter Olympics for Sochi suggests that power politics has become an integral part of the Olympic bidding process.
When London was awarded the 2012 Olympics two years ago in Singapore, to general surprise, favourites
Paris realised belatedly that they had been politically outmanoeuvred.
Most observers felt British Prime Minister Tony Blair's active campaigning at the International Olympic Committee (IOC) session, personally meeting several IOC members, was key to London's upset victory.
Two years later, Sochi swept to victory at its first bidding attempt, beating Austria's Salzburg, a traditional winter sports city, and South Korea's Pyeongchang, which was bidding for the second consecutive time.
True, the Russian Games concept of mixing the moderate climate of the coastal town with the Krasnaya Polyana mountain range rising behind it was innovative.
However, Putin's committed presence in the Guatemalan capital played an equal, if not greater, role and highlighted the fact that politics has become a major factor of each bid.
Political undertones have long been present in the lobbying process but it is only recently that global political leaders have understood how they can influence the voting.
Previously, politicians tended to put in symbolic appearances. South Africa's Nelson Mandela went to Lausanne in 1997 to support Cape Town's bid for the 2004 Summer Olympics. IOC members clamoured to see him but they awarded the Games to Athens instead.
At that time, open and vocal backing of a bid from the head of state was not a pre-condition for winning the Games.
It looks different now.
Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said the president's contribution was crucial.
"The role of the president in our victory should not be underestimated," he said.
"He did everything and more to make it happen."
Putin was not the only high-ranking politician in Guatemala, as both South Korea's President Roh Moo-hyun and Austrian prime minister Alfred Gusenbauer joined their delegations, spending several days mingling with IOC members.
"I came here simply to lend my support," Roh said humbly.
"A messenger of the Korean people."
Gusenbauer even donned the official delegation suit at the final presentation, sending the message that he was one of the team members, totally committed to the Games.
Putin restricted himself to wearing the official pin but he did deliver his speech in English, a rare thing for a politician renowned for speaking only in Russian at almost all high profile events.
He cracked a few jokes, raised the global profile of the event considerably, a fact not lost on the IOC, and then walked away with the Games.
- REUTERS
