Super Bowl, Winter Olympics, soccer World Cup take extra security measures

(But) a very key part of our plan is deterrence. We want to scare the bad guys away, and they should be scared away, because they won’t get in.”

Unlike the Super Bowl, the Olympics have been struck by terrorism. At the 1972 Munich Games, eleven athletes and coaches from Israel’s Olympic team were killed after being taken hostage by Palestinian gunmen. A bombing in a park during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics killed one and injured more than 100 and was found to be the work of an anti-government extremist.

ABC News reports that a senior International Olympic Committee (IOC) member told the AP there have been other, less-serious security threats thwarted at past Olympics. The person spoke on condition of anonymity, citing an IOC policy of not talking publicly about security issues.

Another IOC official, executive board member Craig Reedie of Britain, said security concerns were raised by the ambush of the Sri Lankan cricket team in Pakistan last year and the machine gun attack on a bus carrying the Togo soccer team to the African Cup of Nations in Angola in January.

Detailed security planning has been under way for Vancouver since the IOC approved its bid seven years ago. A security budget initially projected at $175 million now tops $900 million, and the force for the games will include more than 15,000 people, a surveillance blimp hovering over Vancouver, and more than 900 surveillance cameras monitoring competition venues and crowd-attracting public areas.

Similarly, security planning for the World Cup began years ago. South African police and military forces are coordinating efforts for soccer’s showcase event and have conducted training simulations of chemical, biological, and radiation attacks. During the World Cup, fans driving to matches must park more than a half-mile away; only officials and teams can drive right up to a stadium. Once they arrive, spectators will have to show tickets to police and be subject to searches.

Clearly, that final step is considered key at all events. “We feel very good about the plan. The concern always comes down to execution: We’re depending on the team or the individual to execute,” the NFL’s Ahlerich said. “We’ve got a couple of thousand civilian security personnel and certainly a great number of sworn personnel assigned to this. If everybody does their job the way we planned, we’ll be just fine. But if someone doesn’t, then you’ve got risks associated — more risk than you would hope.”