Mitt Romney has condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin for spending billions on the Sochi Winter Olympics, as part of an “unsavoury” vanity project.

However Romney, who made his name turning around the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 2002 before running unsuccessfully for president as a Republican in 2008 and 2012, risks being accused of hypocrisy. Several officials who worked alongside Romney in Salt Lake City have gone on record accusing him of using the Games for his own political gain.

Romney famously approved a series of Olympic pins bearing his own face, including one in which he was surrounded by official Games mascots beneath the slogan: “Hey Mitt, We Love You!”

Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Romney complained that public funds for Olympics were being used “cynically, to show off the politicians in a country”, and said the International Olympic Committee should cap the amount spent on the Games.

“You don’t need to spend $50bn as Russia has or as China did [for the 2008 summer Games], to put on Olympic sport. Olympic sport can be demonstrated at $2-3bn, and all that extra money could be used to do some very important things in terms of fighting poverty and fighting disease around the world.”

He added: “To take money from some people so that politicians can be puffed up and can be shown around the world is, I think, something that is very distasteful at a time when there is so much poverty and so much need.”

Pressed on whether he was referring to Putin, who might think the enormous cost of the Olympics was “worth it” because of the personal attention the Games would bring, he replied: “I think there is no questions that politicians who take this money and spend $50bn to host the world for TV appearances, they think it is worth it – or they wouldn’t spend it.”

He added: “It is a very unsavoury thing and I think the International Olympic Committee is going to have to take action to limit how much is spent on Olympic Games.”

A former businessman who ran a successful Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign on the back of his Winter Olympics success, Romney made a similar argument earlier this week in a USA Today op-ed article.

“I personally attest that the Olympics is the experience of a lifetime for everyone who touches it,” he wrote. “To guarantee that the athletes remain the focus of the Games, and that the Olympics endures for generations to come, it is time to limit the excess.”

Prime minister Dmitry Medvedev, and president Vladimir Putin, watch a group stage ice hockey match between Slovakia and Russia. Photograph: Klimentyev Mikhail/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis Photograph: Klimentyev Mikhail/ Klimentyev Mikhail/ITAR-TASS Photo/Corbis

There has been growing speculation in recent weeks that Romney could mount a third bid for the White House, having failed to secure the Republican nomination in 2008 before losing to President Barack Obama in 2012. On NBC, he repeated earlier denials that he would would consider another campaign.

“I’m not Ronald Reagan,” he said, referring to a Republican president who reached the White House on his third attempt.

Romney is widely credited with helping turn around the Salt Lake City Games, which cost just $3bn. He was particularly adept at procuring private-sector backing.

However, critics also said he used the Games as a political launchpad, and did not hesitate to exploit the exposure and recognition he got from being parachuted in as chief executive and president of Salt Lake City’s organising committee.

“What turned me sour was his demand to get all the credit and ignore everybody who put in thousands and thousands of hours before he arrived,” Sydney Fonnesbeck, a former Salt Lake City councillor, told the Boston Globe in 2007.

Michael Kranish and Scott Helman, authors of The Real Romney, said Romney was the first Olympics executive in history to approve memorabilia pins emblazoned with their own image. One pin depicted Romney pulling at a sled filled with Powder, Copper and Coal, the cartoon characters which were the official mascots for the Salt Lake City Games, with the caption “100 Days To Go”.

A second showed the same cartoon mascots – a hare, coyote and bear – holding hearts, in an expression of Valentine’s Day devotion to Romney. A third simply depicts a chiselled Romney draped in an American flag and wearing a Salt Lake City Olympics necktie. Critics have remarked on Romney’s resemblance to Superman on the pins.

“There have been plenty of big-headed CEOs for Olympic Games, but none has ever had his or her likeness on a pin,” Ed Hula, a veteran pin collector and editor of aroundtherings.com, told NPR radio in 2012.

During the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City Games, televised to millions around the world, Romney was constantly at the side of President George W Bush, sharing the limelight.



“He tried very hard to build an image of himself as a saviour, the great white hope,” Ken Bullock, who served on Salt Lake’s organising committee and often clashed with Romney, told the Globe. “He was very good at characterising and castigating people and putting himself on a pedestal.”