The United States Olympic Committee has thrown a hat in the ring for the 2024 Summer Olympics.
No big reveal there, since all signs have pointed that way for a year.
But which logo is on the hat will not be decided and unveiled until at least the start of January.
Following a Tuesday meeting in Redwood City, Calif., where finalists Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington made hour-long presentations of their plans, the USOC board of directors unanimously decided to go only so far as to say there will be a U.S. candidate.
“There are 105 IOC members, and I have heard multiple IOCmembers endorse each of the cities,” USOC chairman Larry Probst, an IOC member himself, said on a media conference call. “We have gotten a lot of encouragement to bid from IOC members and the highest levels of the IOC.”
Formal application papers do not need to be filed with the International Olympic Committee until next Sept. 15. The executive board will, if necessary, trim the field to about four finalists in the spring of 2016, and the IOC members will choose the winner at their September 2017 annual meeting in Lima, Peru.
Two-time Olympic host Los Angeles (1932 and 1984) and San Francisco have been candidates in the international phase of the host city bid process. This would be the first time for Boston or Washington.
The U.S. city will face formidable opposition, some spurred by changes the IOC approved eight days ago to help lower the costs of both bidding for and staging the now gargantuan Summer Games.
One such rule allows the sharing of a bid between more than one city – or even country – for reasons of sustainability, which translates to avoiding a legacy of white elephant new arenas in a single city. That goes further than the past practice of having a few sports (notably soccer and sailing) far from the host city.
In formally announcing Rome’s candidature Monday, Italian officials envisioned an Olympics spread among existing facilities several cities, including Florence, Milan, and Naples. Rome, the 1960 host, had dropped a planned bid for the 2020 Olympics because of uncertainty over both costs and benefits.
Germany, which intends to bid with either Berlin or Hamburg as the designated host, could effectively use both.
The Hungarian Olympic Committee has talked of a similar-style plan for a Budapest candidature. So is South Africa, in the only continent yet to host an Olympics.
Paris is getting closer to a bid for an Olympics that would mark the 100th anniversary of its last time as host. Melbourne, Australia, the 1956 host (with equestrian events in Stockholm due to horse quarantine issues), is a possible candidate.
USOC officials have considered a joint bid from Los Angeles and San Francisco, but conversations with IOC members at a last week’s IOC meeting in Monaco have disabused them of that idea.
“If we decide to proceed with a bid, it will be one city, not a regional bid or a multi-city bid,” Probst told the Tribune in Monaco. “The members expect the United States city to be able to conduct the Games in one location rather than multiple locations in different cities.”
The last two U.S. bids for the Summer Games were unceremoniously rejected. Chicago lost in the first round of voting in a four-city final for 2016, won by Rio. New York went out in the second round of a five-city final for 2012, won by London.
Other than Los Angeles, only two U.S. cities have been hosts of the 27 Summer Games held to date: St. Louis (1904) and Atlanta (1996).
The 2016 Olympics are to be in Rio, the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.
Correction: an earlier version of this story said Los Angeles was the only finalist to have been a candidate in the international phase of the bid process. San Francisco was among six U.S. cities in that phase for the 1956 Summer Games, when the IOC allowed multiple bidders from a country.
