The U.S. Olympic Committee (USOC) has officially severed ties with the Boston 2024 Olympic bid today, ESPN reports.
Earlier today, the Boston bid took a major hit when city mayor Marty Walsh announced that he would not commit to signing the USOC’s agreement and was against committing taxpayer dollars to host the Olympic Games.
That statement left the writing on the wall for the USOC, which has been watching the bid warily ever since selecting Boston out of four other cities back in January. Opposition to an Olympic bid in the city has been strong ever since, with criticism rumbling over the cost of the Games and the city’s viability to adequately host them, among other things.
Apparently Walsh’s refusal to commit was the last straw for the USOC, which announced it would no longer back a Boston bid in a teleconference earlier today.
That leaves the U.S. Olympic Committee in a tight spot. If the USOC still wants to enter a bid for the 2024 Olympics, they’ll have to organize all the details of a new host city within two months, with official bids due to the International Olympic Committee by September 15th.
Los Angeles has been the rumored likely replacement city, as it was arguably Boston’s biggest challenger when the USOC originally selected a host in January.
It would have forced Boston to modernize an archaic transportation system if I’ve well understood.
And I believe that LA also seriously needs to modernize its own transportation system too. Every time I watch a NBA match of Lakers or Clippers with the ESPN coverage they show an aerial view and watching all these cars stuck in traffic jams and go at 10 miles per hour is a great show. But bad for people who drive these cars and bad for the pollution. Where is the modern subway? Where is the high-speed rail road? Anyway, as long as people will not understand that in long term you lose much more money in not rebuilding and modernizing your infrastructures, there… Read more »
BoBo
With all due respect good sir….while your swim chatter here on The Swim of Swam is an entertaining read, please, no comments on American politics. Better to keep your mouth closed and appear a fool than to open said mouth and remove all doubt. Allow me to educate you –
1. Blame the infrastructure on Republican Congressmen? You mention LA…the city run has been run by Democrats (a little brother brand of your socialism) for years. The bottom line is that all local and state governments here in the US have to balance budgets – should our federal government be forced to build subways for LA when more pressing matters exist?
2. Boston public support… Read more »
It’s not that hard to get into or out of an event at staples center….u don’t know what u are talking about. And judging the transportation system by the traffic surrounding a sporting event is just comical. But I would generally agree with that LA city and county have done the worst job in all of SoCal….potholes everywhere and the main freeways were not widened and improved to keep up with the traffic growth over the years
There is a theory about widening freeways and congestion. I forget the name, but the premise is that of field of dreams, if you widen it more will drive, more people on the roads, still more congestion. Living in Houston, they widened I10 to a ridiculous number of lanes and it still gets backed up.
What about Seattle? They could handle it. Microsoft and Amazon are up there too and could throw down big capital.
As another former Bostonian I can also say good riddance to the IOC. And take Fina with you. The Olympic aftermath in that beautiful city would be a scar for 200 years.
What I dont understand is that there are hundreds/thousands of sports competitions held every week at all levels of competition throughout the world but when it is done under the Olympic umbrella it now costs Billions and Billions of dollars. Everyone else seems to make money or pay their bills based on participant fees, sponsors and volunteer labor etc but not the Olympics its only two weeks long and it costs billions of dollars.
A former Bostonian myself, I think this was the right move for the people of Boston and Massachusetts. I live in L.A. but I think that L.A./Long Beach would be an only marginally better candidate city, and I don’t support a bid at this point for the same reasons that Bostonians didn’t support one. L.A. may have done a good job in 84, but the city has changed drastically since then, and infrastructure and service needs have not kept up. When I looked at the L.A. bid last year, the venues were very spread out and especially with the archaic transportation system, logistics would be chaotic to say the least. According to Homeland Security, L.A. is also a frequent mention… Read more »
Los Angeles? Who is in the running internationally? I am curious who the competition is. Los Angeles did such a fantastic job in 1984, I am curious who they may be running against for the Games of ’24.
hamburg, paris, rome and budapest in the running so far.
Lane Four – Currently, Budapest, Hungary; Hamburg, Germany; Rome, Italy; and Paris, France have announced their intentions to bid, and Toronto has been mulling a bid over the past few weeks.
All I can say is Boston Sucks
They’ll still run the swim meet in their time zone anyway.