The United States Olympic Committee (USOC) will be resuming negotiations with the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Friday during the inaugural Winter Youth Olympic Games in Innsbruck, Austria, on revenue sharing, a dispute that is blocking any potential American Olympic bid.
The Associated Press quotes USOC chairman Larry Probst saying Wednesday, “we’re making progress, slowly but surely. I think both sides want to make sure that this gets done correctly. That’s obviously taking some time”.
When the two sides failed to reach an agreement last year, the USOC didn’t bid on the 2020 Summer Games.
CEO Scott Blackmun said Wednesday, “we would love to host the Games. It’s important for us to keep Americans connected to the Games. But as we saw with New York’s bid and Chicago’s bid, while we have this dispute out there, it’s difficult for us to put together a bid that’s really going to resonate with the IOC.
“We want to put ourselves in the best possible position to win a bid if we do in fact bid for another winter or summer Games.
Probst said, “we’re hoping we can get to a resolution that both sides are comfortable with sometime in the not too distant future — sooner rather than later. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of different constituencies need to be considered. It’s time consuming”.
There is interest from potential U.S. bid cities for the 2022 Winter Games. Denver has formed an exploratory committee on a possible bid. Reno-Lake Tahoe and Salt Lake City are also interested in bidding.
