COLORADO SPRINGS — U.S. Olympic Committee officials are saying there is little chance they will bid for the 2020 Summer Games, leading some to speculate the chances of a Denver bid for the 2022 Winter Games have improved.
The USOC wants to make progress in revenue sharing negotiations with the International Olympic Committee before considering Olympic bids.
“It’s highly unlikely that we would bid (for) 2020,” USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun said. “It’s highly unlikely that we will bid for any Games until we make some progress on the revenue sharing issues. If we make progress on the revenue sharing in time to make a 2022 bid, we would certainly look at that.”
KieAnn Brownell, president of the Metro Denver Sports Commission, said there was nothing surprising in Blackmun’s remarks.
“If you just look at the timeline, you can see that time is ticking,” Brownell said. “In order to be able to bid for 2020, that would start internationally next summer. That would mean a very accelerated process.”
A delegation from Denver was here last week to attend the Olympic Assembly, three days of meetings involving the extended U.S. Olympic family.
The Denver group is actively involved in attracting national and international events.
“We are interested in looking at all types of events that we can bring to Denver for economic impact,” Brownell said. “At some point, if the USOC says we’re going to get back in the (Olympic) bid game, we would be interested in sitting down and talking to them and seeing what that looks like.”
John Meyer: 303-954-1616 or jmeyer@denverpost.com
