Boston will reportedly drop its bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics, according to the Boston Globe, leaving the United States without a candidate to host that year’s games.
Boston ends bid to host 2024 Summer Olympics
After public controversy, America’s best hope at hosting the 2024 Olympics is apparently dead.
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Back in January, the United States Olympic Committee announced that Boston had beaten Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to serve as America’s bid for the games. However, the idea of hosting the Olympics in Boston proved to be rather unpopular locally, where the populace valued fixing the city’s existing problems rather than spending billions on an athletic competition.
The last straw seemingly came Monday, when Mayor Martin Walsh -- previously positive about the idea of hosting the games -- said he was unwilling to commit taxpayer funds in case of fundraising shortfalls. The leadership behind the bid, USOC CEO Scott Blackmun and Boston 2024 Partnership chairman Steve Pagliuca, then released a statement announcing the decision to back out (via USA Today’s Rachel Axon):
It seems pretty unlikely that the United States can host the 2024 Olympics at this point. The Associated Press speculates that Los Angeles could try and revive its bid, but that’s a hard sell with just seven weeks until cities have to officially announce whether they’re in. The winner of the bid will officially be announced in 2017.
The United States hasn’t hosted a Summer Olympics since 1996 in Atlanta, and withdrew from bidding on the 2020 Summer Olympics and 2022 Winter Olympics in hopes of winning a 2024 bid. Cities still in the running for 2024 include Rome, Paris, Hamburg, Toronto and Budapest.
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