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Boston will be the 2024 U.S. Olympic bid city.
The U.S. Olympic Committee chose Boston over fellow finalists Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C, announcing the decision after a board of directors meeting in Denver on Thursday.
The decision took multiple rounds of voting after final presentations from each of the four cities, according to the USOC.
“We’re excited about our plans to submit a bid for the 2024 Games and feel we have an incredibly strong partner in Boston that will work with us to present a compelling bid,” USOC Chairman Larry Probst said in a press release. “We’re grateful to the leaders in each of the four cities for their partnership and interest in hosting the most exciting sports competition on earth. The deliberative and collaborative process that we put in place for selecting a city has resulted in a strong U.S. bid that can truly serve the athletes and the Olympic and Paralympic movements.”
Boston, which has never bid for the Olympics before, will go up against international bids including but not limited to Rome, Berlin or Hamburg and possibly Paris and a South African applicant.
“This selection is in recognition of our city’s talent, diversity and global leadership,” Boston mayor Marty Walsh said in a press release. “Our goal is to host Olympic and Paralympic Games that are innovative, walkable and hospitable to all. Boston hopes to welcome the world’s greatest athletes to one of the world’s great cities.”
The bid submission deadline is Sept. 15. The International Olympic Committee will choose candidate cities from those applicant cities in April/May 2016.
IOC members will vote to choose the 2024 Olympic host city in 2017 at a session in Lima, Peru.
Worldwide 2024 Olympic bidding coverage
The U.S. last hosted the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City in 2002 and the Summer Olympics in Atlanta in 1996.
The current 22-year stretch is its longest gap between hosting Olympics since it went 28 years between 1932 and 1960.
Boston’s bid plans to make use of area colleges and universities in a plan that has been called compact. More details of its plan can be found on its website.
“The city is the Olympic park,” Dan O’Connell, president of the Boston 2024 Partnership, told the Boston Globe in September. “It becomes a public-transit and walking Olympics.”
Italy and Germany’s Olympic Committees said they will also bid for the 2024 Olympics. Rome will be Italy’s bid. Germany will choose between Berlin and Hamburg by the end of March.
A South African member of the IOC said his nation is also readying to bid for the 2024 Olympics. An African nation has never hosted an Olympics.
Paris may also bid to host the Olympics on the 100-year anniversary of the last time it hosted.
Early details of Boston’s 2024 Olympic concept
Of the four U.S. finalist cities, Los Angeles was the only one that hosted an Olympics — in 1932 and 1984.
San Francisco attempted bids for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics. New York and Chicago became the respective U.S. bids those years and lost in IOC voting to London and Rio de Janeiro.
President Barack Obama, who pitched at the IOC session in Copenhagen in 2009 for the Chicago 2016 bid, released this statement:
“The President and First Lady extend their congratulations to the City of Boston on its nomination by the United States Olympic Committee to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The city has taught all of us what it means to be Boston Strong. The President and First Lady couldn’t be prouder of this accomplishment and of all of our nation’s athletes, and strongly support the effort to bring the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games to the United States. We hope to welcome athletes from around the globe to compete in Boston in 2024.”
