Back To Beijing

Beijing was awarded the 2022 Winter Games, becoming the first city to host both Summer and Winter Games. Almaty, which may not have ever had a realistic chance, becomes the also-ran. The host city for 2024 will be announced in two years; will the U.S. be making a bid now that Boston has bailed? It looks like Los Angeles is the strongest possibility:

On Friday at the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) 128th Session in Kuala Lumpur IOC President Thomas Bach said that he has received firm commitments to bid from five national Olympic Committees – ” France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, USA,” he said.

Despite Boston’s demise, the USOC is under pressure to choose a replacement city to avoid any conflict with the IOC – yet they aren’t obligated to make any nomination on the September 15 deadline date.  But if the USOC does move forward, Los Angeles seems to be the most viable choice. 

Read more at gamesbids.

Boston Says No

.@TeamUSA and #Boston2024 have jointly ended the campaign for Boston to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

— Boston 2024 (@Boston2024) July 27, 2015

The big Olympic news this week was supposed to be the announcement of the site for 2022 Winter Games, which will happen on Friday. Before we get to that, however, America's candidate city for the 2024 games, Boston, made news of its own today, declaring that the city will not go forward with its bid. From bleacherreport.com:

Los Angeles, which finished second behind Boston in the competition to win the bid, "would be ready and willing to mount a bid on short notice," according to David Wharton of the Los Angeles Times.

The USOC originally chose Boston over Washington D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles as the U.S. bid representative in January. Despite an initial push from politicians within the city, Boston residents soured on the Olympics almost from the moment it was announced. In April, an NPR poll found 50 percent of Boston-area residents were opposed to the city hosting the Olympics, with most citing the onerous burden on taxpayers. (Read the article here.) 

Boston's not the only city to have fallen out of love with the Olympics. There are only two cities, Beijing and Almaty, Kazakhstan, left in the running for 2022, after Stockholm, Oslo and a few others dropped out of the process, and according to gamesbids, a site that tracks every detail of the Olympic bidding process, New Zealand and Spain looked at preparing bids for 2026 but decided against it. Apparently the hassle, the disruption and most of all the exorbitant cost, are causing cities and countries to say No Thanks to hosting the games. 

Gamesbids says that Toronto, Rome, Hamburg and Budapest are among the cities considering 2024 bids; I wonder how many will still be in the running at announcement time in 2017. The 2022 announcement comes first, of course and will be made on Friday. Neither candidate city is ideal for the Winter Games and whichever city is awarded the bid, there's bound to be some grumbling. Maybe it's getting to be time to consider a permanent home for the Games. 

In the meantime, the Summer Games that are not being held in Chicago get underway in 375 days.

2024 Olympics In The U.S.?

Friday morning update: Some interesting "inside baseball" history from the Washington Post. As with many things, it all comes down to money and politics.

For several years, relations between the USOC and the IOC were fraught, as the two sides bickered over finances. The global political climate in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks and the Iraq war isolated the United States within much of the IOC, and the number of U.S. supporters at IOC meetings seemed to shrink from year to year. Plus, when they were considering Olympic bids, many longtime IOC members couldn’t get over lingering distaste from the Atlanta Games, which suffered from transportation issues, security lapses and logistical disorganization.

“All that has gone away,” said David Wallechinsky, president of the International Society of Olympic Historians. “The current IOC is much friendlier to the United States. It’s a better environment.”

After Chicago’s failed bid, USOC officials made it their mission to improve frayed relations, and in the past five years there have been plenty of changes among both the IOC and the USOC leadership. Thomas Bach became the IOC’s new president in 2013, while Scott Blackmun took over as the USOC’s CEO in 2010. 

6.45 p.m. update: It's Boston. There was some confusion on Twitter after the announcement was made, with some tweeters appearing to think Boston had won the actual games. Not yet; today they just won the right to be the official American city bidding for 2024. The International Olympic Committee will announce the final selection in the summer of 2017. (Prior to that, in July of this year, the site of the 2022 Winter Games will be announced. Beijing and Almaty are the two candidate cities still in contention.)



Original Post:
I didn't realize it but today is a key milestone date in the march to the 2024 Summer Olympics. Later today the United States Olympic Committee Board of Directors is expected to select one of four American cities to go forward with the official U.S. bid for 2024. Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington D.C. are in the running; here are two of the video pitches:

Washington D.C.



San Diego





In 2024 it will have been 28 years since the U.S. last hosted the Summer Games (Atlanta 1996) and 22 years since our last Winter games (Salt Lake City, 2002.) Political reality might suggest that it's our turn. Stay tuned, if I hear an announcement I'll update this post.