While the USOC might have L.A. "pick up the baton" after yesterday's announcement that Boston will end its bid for the '24 Games, its leaders "first should explain why their common sense got buried under a bigger snow job than the stuff that paralyzed Boston for weeks last winter," according to Philip Hersh of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE, who writes under the header, "End Of Boston 2024 Olympic Bid A Blow To USOC Leadership." Hersh wonders how USOC Chair Larry Probst and CEO Scott Blackmun bought the idea in Boston's original bid documents that there "would be no serious local opposition when it was so strong." Polls this year showed "no more than" 40% of Boston-area voters supported the bid. Hersh: "Why did they let Boston 2024 leaders keep talking about no risk to taxpayers when the first iteration of the plans -- kept secret until Friday -- projected a $471 million budget shortfall?" A "decent showing, if not victory," by L.A. in the September '17 vote to host the '24 Games "could set the table for success" in '28. It also would "redeem the USOC leaders, whose efforts in other areas -- stabilizing the USOC, rebuilding relations with the Olympic world -- deserve praise" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 7/28). USA TODAY's Christine Brennan writes under the header, "Blame USOC For Boston's Failed Olympics Bid." After Boston "became the symbol of the USOC’s re-emergence into the world of bidding for -- and even winning -- the right to host future Olympic Games, to lose Boston so quickly is just an awful turn of events" for the organization. The USOC’s 16-member BOD picked Boston "even though it knew Boston’s bid had the lowest public support of the four bidding cities and came with its own ready-made protest group." Brennan: "Even if Probst and Blackmun didn’t personally make the Boston decision, it’s on their watch, and that is not good" (USA TODAY, 7/28). FORBES.com's Patrick Rishe asks, "How did the USOC so badly misread the situation to assume Bostonians would be stoked to be a part of the Olympic movement?" There was an "overwhelming lack of public support to host which the USOC should have vetted before making their selection" (FORBES.com, 7/28).
MISSING THE OBVIOUS CLUES: In L.A., Bill Plaschke writes the USOC "thought it could impress the IOC in picking a city rich in history, education and culture" like Boston. Somehow, it "neglected to realize it was also picking a city that didn't want the Games and had no clue how to make them work" (L.A. TIMES, 7/28). In Boston, John Powers writes the "fast-forward nature" of the bid process "was fatal when dealing with a city that doesn’t do hurry-up for anyone." If the USOC "didn’t know that, it should have" (BOSTON GLOBE, 7/28).
