Colorado Springs – The chief executive officer of the U.S. Olympic Committee believes the United States has a much better chance of bringing the Summer Olympics to America in 2016 than it did for 2012.
In an interview Wednesday, Jim Scherr also said the USOC will strongly support softball in its attempt to be back on the Olympic program, but said baseball has to clean up its drug-testing issues, among others, before it receives the same backing.
Reflecting on New York’s failed bid to land the 2012 Olympics, Scherr said he felt the issue with the stadium – state leaders rejected a plan for one in Manhattan about a month before the vote – played a role in the International Olympic Committee’s decision to bypass America’s largest city during its vote.
“I’m sure it created a little bit of lack of confidence as to whether there might be more changes down the road if New York were selected,” Scherr said. “But there were so many factors that you can’t just say it was one thing.”
He buys into the commonly held belief that New York entered the process as an underdog. That was not only because of the strength of the bids from London and Paris, but because of the scandal that rocked the bidding process for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, and because the United States is unpopular politically around the world.
“That’s always going to make this an uphill battle,” Scherr said. “But next time, we’ll be further removed from the Salt Lake Games. Hopefully, the world view of us and our international politics will be different at that point in time.”
With New York undecided about bidding for the 2016 Olympics, Scherr reiterated that the USOC wants an open process to determine the city it will choose as a potential host for those Games. The USOC board will begin developing timelines and parameters for the bid process at its meeting in September.
With Paris essentially removing itself from a 2016 bid, and with Asia and Europe represented in the Olympic rotation between now and then, Scherr believes a U.S. city will stand a good chance of landing the first Summer Games in America since Atlanta in 1996.
In other news out of Singapore last week, the decision to ax softball and baseball from the Olympic program beginning in 2012 was viewed by many as a harsh blow to the United States, which has more traditional ties to both sports than any other country.
The USOC has a different story, saying it was more the responsibility of the international federations of the sports than the United States to keep them viable in front of the IOC.
Scherr said Major League Baseball’s unwillingness to let its players participate in the Olympics, combined with ongoing steroid and drug-testing issues made it an easy target for the IOC.
Scherr conceded there was a stigma with having an American-born sport pushed out of the Olympic program.
“But unless they work on all those issues, it would be really hard for the USOC to join there, regardless of what we want to do,” he said.
