Jan. 05--The United States Olympic Committee is likely to announce Thursday which city will be the U.S. candidate to host the 2024 Summer Olympics.
The finalists are Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington.
An announcement would follow a Thursday USOC board of directors meeting at the Denver International Airport.
The board decided at a Dec. 16 meeting that there would be a U.S. candidate city but wanted to do further evaluation of the four bids.
Formal application papers do not need to be filed with the International Olympic Committee until next Sept. 15. The executive board will, if necessary, trim the field to about four finalists in the spring of 2016, and the IOC members will choose the winner at their September 2017 annual meeting in Lima, Peru.
The U.S. city will face formidable opposition, some spurred by changes the IOC approved eight days ago to help lower the costs of both bidding for and staging the now gargantuan Summer Games.
One such change, known as the "invitation phase" and beginning next week, is the IOC's attempt to make bidding more of a consultative partnership, so each bidder's plans can be better tailored to the needs of its city and country. That should make the bid more palatable at home and avoid later problems and conflicts over the plans with the IOC or international sports bodies.
Another new IOC rule allows the sharing of a bid between more than one city -- or even country -- for reasons of sustainability, which translates to avoiding a legacy of white elephant new arenas in a single city. That goes further than the past practice of having a few sports (notably soccer and sailing) far from the host city.
In formally announcing Rome's candidature last month, Italian officials envisioned an Olympics spread among existing facilities several cities, including Florence, Milan, and Naples. Rome, the 1960 host, had dropped a planned bid for the 2020 Olympics because of uncertainty over both costs and benefits.
Germany, which intends to bid with either Berlin or Hamburg as the designated host, could effectively use both.
The Hungarian Olympic Committee has talked of a similar-style plan for a Budapest candidature. So is South Africa, in the only continent yet to host an Olympics.
Paris is getting closer to a bid for an Olympics that would mark the 100th anniversary of its last time as host. Melbourne, Australia, the 1956 host (with equestrian events in Stockholm due to horse quarantine issues), is a possible candidate.
