Olympics: Bach: Boston failed to deliver on ‘promises’ to USOC

Global Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach has defended Tokyo 2020 organisers after they scrapped initial plans for their Olympic Stadium.

The USOC spent nearly two years on a mostly secret domestic selection process that began with letters to almost three dozen cities gauging interest in hosting the Games.

Mori, a former prime minister, said he had offered his apologies and had a positive response from IOC chief Thomas Bach and the executive board.

He also said he had been reassured that the extension of the underground metro system to the Olympic Park in Barra, the main transportation project connected to the Games, would be ready in time.

But eight months earlier, Walsh threw down a very large welcome mat for those same marauders. In an October letter, he gave the USOC good reason to believe he was willing to risk taxpayer money for the benefits an Olympics would bring: He committed to signing a Host City agreement guaranteeing Boston would cover cost overruns.

Ten IOC members resigned or were expelled, and the IOC adopted a series of reforms to clean up the organization. But even then, everybody knew that Los Angeles was the best place to host the 2024 Games. Only seven weeks remain before cities have to be officially nominated.

KCBS and Chronicle insider Phil Matier reports in Tuesday’s Matier and Ross column that the leader of L.A.’s Olympic bid effort contacted San Francisco Giants CEO Larry Baer Tuesday to discuss the idea of a joint proposal.

The IOC is meeting in Kuala Lumpur to choose the victor of the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Boston’s withdrawal leaves the USOC scrambling to find another American city to compete against the likes of Paris, Rome and Hamburg. The United States last hosted the Summer Games in Atlanta in 1996.

In a press conference on Monday, July 27, Boston Mayor Walsh said he could not support the city’s bid – which has received low support – if that meant signing a host city contract now, as he had been asked to do by the USOC.

Mayor Marty Walsh drew plenty of flak, and spawned a trending hashtag, by dismissing the opposition to the city’s doomed bid for the 2024 Olympics as “10 people on Twitter”. The towering basketballer is representing Beijing’s bid for the 2022 Olympics, and the…

“For us the situation has not changed”, Bach said.

“I would be happy to engage in discussions with the USOC about how to present the strongest and most fiscally responsible bid on behalf of our city and nation”, Garcetti said.

A 2012 New York bid was undone by the last-minute wipeout of the planned main stadium site while a 2016 Chicago bid was the first ousted in IOC voting.

It hosted the 1932 and 1984 Olympic games.

So in hindsight we can see that Boston 2024 saw an opportunity based on falsehoods from the Olympic bureaucracy, and responded with falsehoods of their own.