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SCMP Reporter

BEIJING'S Olympic Bid Committee returned to work yesterday and was immediately faced with an awkward problem - what to do with the estimated millions of yuan donated by the public to the city's ill-fated attempt to host the 2000 Games.

  The president of the Chinese Olympic Committee, He Zhenliang, said earlier this year that all money donated to the cause would be returned to the donators if the bid was unsuccessful.

  Anonymous donations would be given to charity.

  But no money has yet been returned and bid committee officials said donations were still pouring in from people anxious to continue supporting Beijing's Olympic dream.

  Officials admitted they did not have any plans at present to return the donations, many of which came from Hong Kong.

  They said the matter would be discussed in forthcoming meetings of the bid committee.

  In their first meeting since the narrow defeat by Sydney at the International Olympic Committee session in Monte Carlo last month, members of the bid committee began to review their campaign and set out their strategy for the future.

  The committee will eventually issue a report on future strategy and say if Beijing or another Chinese city will bid for the 2004 Olympiad.

  However, officials said that report could be a long time coming.

  ''There are a lot things that need to be worked out, so it is very difficult to say when the report will be ready,'' one official said yesterday.

  Analysts said the bid committee would be forced to radically rethink its strategy which, since the bid committee for the 1990 Asian Games was formed in the mid-1980s, has been exclusively geared to hosting the 2000 Olympics in Beijing.

  ''As far as I know, no other place or date options were even discussed, so the failure to win the bid has put them in a real jam,'' said a Western observer who has followed the bid closely.

  ''So far, there has been a continuous line from the mid-80s, but that line came to an abrupt stop in Monte Carlo.

  ''I have a feeling they might have to start from scratch again and get rid of some of the people in the committee who showed themselves to be more of a liability than an asset,'' he added.

  Vice-Mayor Zhang Baifa caused an uproar in Monte Carlo after he was quoted by an Australian television station as saying that China might boycott the 1996 Atlanta Games if Beijing lost its bid.

  Bid committee officials quickly responded, however, saying there would be no personnel changes on the committee in the near future.



Olympic bid officials faced with public donation problem