COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- The chief executive officer of
the U.S. Olympic Committee believes the United States has a much
better chance of bringing the Summer Olympics to America in 2016
than it did for 2012.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday, Jim
Scherr also said the USOC will strongly support softball in its
attempt to be re-included on the Olympic program, but said baseball
has to clean up its drug-testing issues, among others, before it
receives the same backing.
Reflecting on New York's failed bid to land the 2012 Olympics,
Scherr said he felt the issue with the stadium -- state leaders
rejected a plan for one in Manhattan about a month before the vote
-- played a role in the International Olympic Committee's decision
to bypass America's largest city during its vote last week in
Singapore.
"I'm sure it created a little bit of lack of confidence as to
whether there might be more changes down the road if New York were
selected," Scherr said. "But there were so many factors that you
can't just say it was one thing."
He buys into the commonly held belief that New York entered the
process as an underdog. That was not only because of the strength
of the bids from London and Paris, but because of the scandal that
rocked the bidding process for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake
City, and because the United States is unpopular politically around
the world.
"That's always going to make this an uphill battle," Scherr
said. "But next time, we'll be further removed from the Salt Lake
Games. Hopefully, the world view of us and our international
politics will be different at that point in time. Clearly, I think
it will by then."
With New York undecided about bidding for the 2016 Olympics,
Scherr reiterated that the USOC wants an open process to determine
the city it will choose as a potential host for those games. The
USOC board will begin developing timelines and parameters for the
bid process at its meeting in September.
With Paris essentially removing itself from a 2016 bid, and with
Asia and Europe represented in the Olympic rotation between now and
then, Scherr believes a U.S. city will stand a good chance of
landing the first Summer Games in America since Atlanta in 1996.
"It all plays into it to make it more favorable for a city from
North America and the U.S. to be successful," he said.
In other news out of Singapore last week, the decision to ax
softball and baseball from the Olympic program beginning in 2012
was viewed by many as a harsh blow to the United States, which has
more traditional ties to both sports than any other country.
The USOC is spinning a different story, saying it was more the
responsibility of the international federations of the sports than
the United States to keep them viable in front of the IOC.
Scherr believes softball and baseball were wrongly lumped
together by many in the international community -- with softball
being viewed as the female equivalent of baseball and not its own
sport.
He said the USOC would put its full support behind getting
softball back into the games. He portrayed the sport as an ideal
for the Olympics, especially from the American perspective.
"It's a critical sport for the U.S. Olympic program because of
the number of girls who participate nationwide and the importance
of that to the USOC and the American public," Scherr said. "If an
international or national federation asks for support, certainly
we'll provide it. We're motivated to do it for softball."
En route to the gold medal in Athens, the U.S. team outscored
opponents 51-1, leading some to believe it was cut because of
American domination. In 2000, however, the U.S. won much less
convincingly, losing three games and coming within a game of
elimination.
"To penalize a team for achieving that level of excellence is,
I think, incredibly unfair," USOC spokesman Darryl Seibel said.
"You don't have to go back too far to see there is balance in the
sport."
The USOC doesn't have near the same commitment to bringing back
baseball.
Scherr said Major League Baseball's unwillingness to let its
players participate in the Olympics, combined with ongoing steroid
and drug-testing issues made it an easy target for the IOC.
Other issues working against baseball included the high cost of
building stadiums for the Olympics, then finding a use for the
stadiums once the games are over; the qualification process, a
single-elimination tournament that left the United States -- the
2000 gold medalist -- out of the Athens Games; and the lack of
support for the sport in Europe.
Scherr conceded there was a stigma with having an American-born
sport pushed out of the Olympic program.
"But unless they work on all those issues, it would be really
hard for the USOC to join there, regardless of what we want to
do," he said.