NEW YORK — The United States will bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics as long as they find a candidate city that meets necessary conditions, United States Olympic Committee (USOC) chairman Larry Probst said Tuesday. The USOC has a long list of criteria that a candidate city must meet but with several cities expressing strong interest in a bid and encouragement from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) it seems almost certain the United States will try to land its first Summer Games since 1996. “It is our intention to bid for 2024 if all the elements we talked about previously are in place,” Probst said during a conference call following the USOC's final board meeting of the year in San Francisco. “That obviously includes, do we have the right message, do we have the right technical plan, do we have the right leaders, do we have the financial support of the local community, do we have governmental support, so a lot of things have to fall in place. Earlier this year, the USOC sent letters to the mayors of America's 35 biggest cities to gauge interest in bidding for the 2024 Games. Dallas, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, San Diego and Tulsa have expressed varying degrees of interest in hosting the sporting extravaganza. USOC chief executive officer Scott Blackmun confirmed reports that a delegation has visited several cities and will be making more visits in December and January. “We said before that there are less than 10 cities that we are having discussions with and it has been reported we have visited a handful of those cities,” said Blackmun. — Reuters
