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 The USOC has a long list of criteria that a candidate city must
meet but with several cities expressing strong interest in a bid and
encouragement from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) it
seems almost certain the United States will try to land its first
Summer Games since 1996.
"It is our intention to bid for 2024 if all the elements we talked
about previously are in place," Probst said during a conference call
following the USOC's final board meeting of the year in San
Francisco.
"That obviously includes, do we have the right message, do we have
the right technical plan, do we have the right leaders, do we have
the financial support of the local community, do we have
governmental support, so a lot of things have to fall in place.
Earlier this year, the USOC sent letters to the mayors of America's
35 biggest cities to gauge interest in bidding for the 2024 Games.
Dallas, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia,
Washington, San Diego and Tulsa have expressed varying degrees of
interest in hosting the sporting extravaganza.
USOC chief executive officer Scott Blackmun confirmed reports that a
delegation has visited several cities and will be making more visits
in December and January.
"We said before that there are less than 10 cities that we are
having discussions with and it has been reported we have visited a
handful of those cities," said Blackmun. "We're on track to make our
decision by the end of 2014 as to whether we want to bid and if we
do who our city would be.
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The USOC has spent several years
patching up strained relationships with the IOC that contributed
to embarrassing rebukes to New York in its bid to stage the 2012
Olympics and Chicago's failed attempt for the 2016 Games.
Both Probst and Blackmun have spent years mending fences and
believe the time is right to test the goodwill they have built.
"We need to continue being present and being engaged," said
Blackmun. "Larry has spent a lot of time on the road, I have
spent a lot of time on the road and we are enjoying being more
involved than we have been if you look back over the last five
or 10 years.
"We just need to continue to be at the meetings and
participate."
The USOC emphasized that it will take a slow, methodical
approach to identifying a candidate.
Blackmun said the USOC could trim the list of possible
candidates following the February 7-23 Sochi Winter Games.
The next Summer Olympics will be held in Rio in 2016 while 2020
Games were awarded to Tokyo in September.
The U.S. would be considered a strong contender for 2024 but is
sure to face stiff competition from several cities including
potential bids Rome, Paris, Doha, Dubai and Durban, South
Africa.
The decision on the 2024 host will not be made until 2017. (Reporting by Steve Keating in Toronto;
editing by Frank Pingue)
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