USOC Chief, IOC Members Expect U.S. 2024 Bid

(ATR) U.S. Olympic Committee chair and IOC member Larry Probst tells Around the Rings that a choice will be made by the end of the month on a new city to bid for the 2024 Summer Games.

"We’re reconnecting with the other three finalists cities, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington DC to gauge their interest in potentially hosting the Games," Probst said in Kuala Lumpur where he is attending the IOC session.

"We’re going to take the feedback we get from each one of those cities and have a board discussion and make a decision about the path going forward. And that’s going to take place by the end of August," he said.

The USOC is scrambling to fill the void left with the withdrawal of Boston as the U.S. nominee last week. Since being chosen in January as the US bidder for 2024, Boston has struggled to win public support as well as pledges from city and state government to provide backing for a Games.

The meltdown of the Boston candidacy gives the USOC only until September 15 to find another nominee; that’s the IOC deadline to apply for the 2024 contest. So far, four other cities are expected to meet that deadline: Budapest, Paris, Hamburg and Rome.

Probst says he is not surprised by the outcome of the vote held two days ago in Kuala Lumpur that elected Beijing as the host of the 2022 Winter Games. He says with three Olympics in a row for Asia he believes the chances are good for a bid from the United States in 2024.

"We’ve always thought we’ve had a great chance of hosting the Games in 2024 and I think that opportunity still exists and were excited about it," he says.

While some IOC members have privately expressed their dismay with the fits and starts of the U.S. Olympic bid, Probst says he’s received plenty of encouragement from IOC colleagues. And he also has the support of IOC Pres. Thomas Bach who has publicly declared twice in Kuala Lumpur that the U.S. is committed to delivering a candidate city for 2024.

"President Bach set the tone when he said he expects the USOC to have one. So I think it is extremely important for the USOC to have a US bidder in there even if they don’t win because it looks as if they have come back into the fold," IOC member in St. Lucia Richard Peterkin tells ATR.

"It’s important for the Olympic Movement to have the United States produce a feasible bid every once in a while because it’s such an important market and just to maintain the level of awareness on Olympic values and on the Olympic Movement in general," Prince Albert of Monaco said, adding "I would welcome a U.S. bid, whether it’s Los Angeles again or any other big city."

Former IOC president Jacques Rogge said it was a long time since the U.S. last hosted a Games, the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.

"I hope a candidate will come. They have to work on public support. But I think the message can be a very good one [under Agenda 2020] – that the Games are now cheaper to organize, less complex and it’s a nice story to fight for," said Rogge.

Anita DeFrantz, senior member of the IOC in the U.S., observed that the passage of time since previous Olympics in the country means generations of athltes and young people have not experienced what it means to have Olympics in the U.S.

"I think it is a good time for the U.S. to have a bid. It is a good time to bring the Games back to the United States so that our athletes and people can appreciate what it means to host the Games again."

DeFrantz, who’s also a Los Angeles resident, dismisses the notion that it’s too late to recover from the Boston debacle .

"The competition starts September 15th. The rest is just prelude," says DeFrantz,.

Reported in Kuala Lumpur by Ed Hula, Mark Bisson and Brian Pinelli

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