U.S. Passes on 2020 Olympic Bid; 2022 "Not on Radar"

(ATR) USOC chief communications officer Patrick Sandusky confirms to Around the Rings there will be no U.S. bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics.

"With such little time left in the process, we don’t believe we can pull together a winning bid that could serve the Olympic and Paralympic Movement," he told ATR minutes after tweeting a similar sentiment to his 1,362 followers.

Seven cities – New York City, Chicago, Las Vegas, Dallas, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and Tulsa, Oklahoma – received "courtesy" calls from USOC headquarters in Colorado Springs ahead of Monday’s announcement.

According to Sandusky, the news should not have surprised any of the seven, all of whom had rumbled at some point or another about a potential bid.

This officially short-circuits any further speculation in these final 10 days until applications are due to IOC headquarters in Lausanne on Sept. 1.

"We’ve told the cities all along this wasn’t something that we were actively pursuing, so this is more of a courtesy just to let them know because they had expressed interest," Sandusky told ATR.

"We’ve said all along this is not something that was our focus.

"We haven’t been considering [a bid], and we just wanted to make sure they knew it was official that we were not going to change our stance."

Time’s running out for cities to step up to what is looking increasingly like a four-city field for 2020. Istanbul, Madrid, Rome and Tokyo are the confirmed candidates, with Qatar yet to announce whether there will be a bid from Doha.

"Right Direction" for Revenue Sharing

After failed bids from New York City for 2012 and Chicago for 2016, the USOC set a revenue-sharing agreement with the IOC as a preconditionfor another bid.

Sandusky said the USOC passing on 2020 and its pending negotiations with the IOC were not linked but that the focus of his NOC remains on the latter.

"The talks are heading in the right direction," he told ATR last week, adding that the two parties agreed not to comment on specifics.

After meetings in June at IOC headquarters and in July at the Durban IOC Session, the USOC and IOC have no current meetings scheduled.

USOC CEO Scott Blackmun will travel to Deagu, South Korea this week along withinternational relations director Dragomir Cioroslan.

When asked whether there will be revenue-sharing discussions on the sidelines of the athletics world championships, Sandusky saidhe couldn’t possibly comment on the specifics.

An IOC spokewoman was a bit more forthcoming, telling Around the Rings nothing is lined up for the near-future, including in Daegu.

2022 Bid Also Doubtful

The joint-bid from ski towns Reno and Tahoe may be the next to receive a courtesy call from Colorado Springs.

According to Sandusky, a bid for 2022 is doubtful as well.

"It’s not something that’s on our radar right now," he told ATR."We’re not focused on any bidding at this point.

"We’ve said all along our focus right now is working with the IOC on a new deal and focusing on our team and our team’s success at the Olympic and Paralympic Games."

Written by Matthew Grayson.