The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are still in full swing, but bids for hosting the Summer Games in 2020 are already on the horizon. However, according to recent reports, the U.S. will not extend a bid to host the Games of the XXXII Olympiad.
The host city for 2020 will be announced in Argentina mid-2013, and interested cities should be lined up as early as next year. The U.S. will not be in the running after being snubbed in the past two selections. Chicago, the anticipated front-runner for the 2016 Olympics, was the first city eliminated in the International Olympic Committee’s selection. The IOC gave the honor to Rio de Janeiro. The U.S. also was denied of being the host country for the 2012 Games when London beat New York.
“At this time, there’s certainly no plans for 2020,” committee spokesman Patrick Sandusky said in an interview Saturday in Vancouver, Business Week reports. “Right now, our focus is on other things, not just bidding.”
The U.S. committee’s unstable leadership (three CEOs in the past year) and their potential plans to launch its own television network has caused conflict with the international committee. According to Business Week, Denis Oswald, a member of the IOC’s executive board from Switzerland, was one of the delegates who suggested that the vote against Chicago may have actually been a vote against the U.S. Olympic Committee.
It is unknown when a Games will be brought to U.S. soil again, The Washington Post reports.
“The cold and hard reality is Chicago spent approximately $80 million on its bid,” U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Scott Blackmun told the Post. “It’s going to be difficult to get U.S. cities to continue to invest to that level unless they think they have a realistic chance of winning. The [International Olympic Committee] sent us a message, loud and clear, that they don’t want the Games to be in the United States.”
The USOC has voiced that it will focus on building better relationships with the IOC. USOC chairman Larry Probost has worked on bolstering the USOC reputation in Vancouver during the Winter Olympics. He met with 32 of the international officials and also attended a U.S.-hosted cocktail party for IOC members. He and his fellow U.S. officials also have held meetings with the various countries’ Olympic committees.
“We’ve had multiple meetings. I would characterize them as cordial and constructive,” Probst told the Post. “We say: ‘What can we do better? What advice do you have for us?’ We point-blank ask those questions.”
Probost mentioned that some cities are interested in hosting Winter Games, but he is not aware of any cities which want to host the Summer Games. The U.S. already has missed the deadline for the 2018 Winter Games.
The U.S. may have to wait until 2022 for a Winter Olympics in the U.S.
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