In the short span of time since the Boston Olympic bid was pulled, a stream of crticisim has flowed back and forth between the City of Boston’s leader and the Olympic organizations that he was partners with only days ago.
Mayor Marty Walsh has been direct in his critical appraisal of the United States Olympic Committee, given his claim that the national organization’s allegedly pressured him to sign the Host City Contract (which includes a taxpayer-backed financial guarantee). And on Wednesday, Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee, fired back at Boston.
“What we could see in a nutshell, what happened there is that Boston did not deliver on promises they made to the USOC when they were selected,” Bach said. “Therefore we can understand the decision by the USOC and we are looking forward to an American bid with another city.”
After initially valuing Boston’s bid as a “strong one,” he mentioned that he eventually lost patience.
“I gave up following it. It was pretty confusing,” Bach noted. “Every day, there was a new project coming from Boston or new people and new ideas. I really gave up following it in detail.”
In response to that, Mayor Walsh took issue with one of the most controversial IOC conditions of an Olympic bid:
In Boston and I’m pretty sure probably in the rest of America, we don’t get forced into putting taxpayers’ money at risk. And if that’s confusing to the IOC president, than it shows exactly why the IOC is in the position they are, in not having multiple countries bid for the Olympics. And I think that’s what they have to realize. I saw his comment today, and the USOC will never admit this but, it’s that guarantee that ultimately helps with poor polling numbers, concerned the senate president, the speaker, the governor. Concerned the taxpayer. So if you think about how this thing has gone down over the last several months, it really comes down to the guarantee that the IOC demand the United States Olympic Committee’s host city sign. That’s really what it…looking at it now a couple days later, there were other factors as well, but I think it’s just unfortunate that the President of the IOC involved himself in this conversation.
Walsh’s mention of “not having multiple countries bid for the Olympics” is a shot at the impending IOC vote on who will host the 2022 Winter Olympics. After initially fielding a deep list of bids, voters representing the Olympic organization will only be able to choose between two nations in Friday’s decision. Almaty, Kazakstan and Beijing, China are the two bids, with neither appearing to be particularly appealing.
The IOC-mandated “guarantee,” which Walsh publicly stated on Monday (in a hastily prepared press conference) that he wouldn’t sign, was statistically a major source of opposition from Massachusetts residents. This was largely due to the fact that most residents believed the claim that “no taxpayer money would be necessary” was not believed. In the final Boston 2024 poll from WBUR in July, a whopping 75 percent of Massachusetts believed that “taxpayer funds will be required to pay for the Games.”
Image via @haydenhbird
