USOC leaders grateful to Los Angeles for 2nd chance at 2024
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – The leader of the U.S. Olympic Committee compared the choice of Boston as a bidder for the 2024 Olympics to Seattle’s choice to pass the ball at the goal line at the end of the Super Bowl last season.
Fortunately, CEO Scott Blackmun said, “unlike the Seahawks, we have not lost the game.”
In his most candid public comments about the ups and downs of the tumultuous bid process, Blackmun used his speech Thursday at the U.S. Olympic Assembly to focus on the second chance Los Angeles has given the USOC to land the 2024 Games.
He also conceded he owed an explanation about the Boston mess to this annual gathering of 400-plus members of the Olympic family.
“The Boston bid failed because, from the beginning, it was not a bid supported by the people of Boston,” Blackmun said. “Should we have taken the risk? In hindsight, the answer is ‘no.’ ”
He equated that to the Seahawks’ decision to throw at the goal line in the closing moments of the Super Bowl, while trailing New England by four.
The Olympics won’t be awarded until 2017. Los Angeles is in the race along with Paris; Rome; Hamburg, Germany; and Budapest, Hungary.
Blackmun introduced L.A. 2024 chairman Casey Wasserman to the crowd.