The powerhouse speaker line-up continues at the 2012 RNC Convention.
U.S. Olympic champions will show their support for Romney at tonight’s finale. Among the 11 Olympians appearing, hockey gold medalist Mike Eruzione, speed skater and world record holder Derek Parra, and five time consecutive skeet champion Kimberly Rhode will speak about Mitt Romney’s brilliant leadership during the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. What better witness than the Olympic athletes to tell the story of how Mitt Romney stepped into that crumbling, corrupt, and indebted disaster, saved it, then turned the event into an organized, outstanding success. Exactly the sort of leader our country needs right now.
The Wall Street Journal reports,
Mike Eruzione … The captain of the U.S. Olympic “Miracle on Ice” hockey team from the 1980 Lake Placid Games is among 11 Olympians expected to appear on the last night of the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., before Mitt Romney’s speech to accept the party’s nomination for president.
…Eruzione and Romney first met through the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics, which were marred by a bribery scandal related to the bidding process and massive financial shortfalls — problems that came before Romney was hired to lead the organizing committee in 1999. …
“It’s the first time anybody’s ever asked me to be part of something so big,” said Eruzione, who scored the goal that put the U.S. ahead to stay in its fabled 4-3 upset of the Soviet Union in 1980. “I’m not going to get up there and talk about Medicare or job opportunities. I’m going to talk about my relationship with him and Salt Lake City and what I thought was an absolutely incredible job to pull those games together. It could have been a disaster.” …
Many of the Olympians invited to the convention have ties to the 2002 Olympics.
Five current or former members of the U.S. Bobsled and Skeleton Federation are to appear Thursday, which is no coincidence, Parsley said.
“I think 2002 was a breakout year for our federation,” Parsley said. “We owe a lot to Mitt Romney and the staff that he put together to pull those Olympic Games from the brink of disaster. The Olympic Games were in question and he really came in and put together a staff of people who did the job and turned it into a huge success. If he had not done what he did, we would not have done what we did.”
Here is a Romney ad highlighting his accomplishment of restoring the 2002 Olympics.
When Mitt Romney took over “he faced a $400 million budget deficit and turned that around to a $100 million surplus” and, as Derek Parra said, “allowed athletes like myself to realize our dreams”.
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