Boston will be USOC's bid city for 2024 Olympics

Nancy Armour | USA TODAY Sports

The U.S. Olympic Committee is counting on Boston to do what New York and Chicago could not.

Boston was chosen over Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., on Thursday to represent the U.S. in a bid for the 2024 Olympic Games. The U.S. hasn't hosted an Olympics since the Salt Lake City Winter Games in 2002, and it has been almost 19 years since the Summer Games were here.

"We're excited about our plans to submit a bid for the 2024 Games and feel we have an incredibly strong partner in Boston that will work with us to present a compelling bid," USOC chairman Larry Probst said in a statement.

Boston enters what is already a competitive field for 2024. Rome announced its intention to try for the games last month, and a German bid from either Berlin or Hamburg is expected. Paris and Istanbul are also expected to enter the race, and South Africa has said it, too, is considering a bid.

But Boston is in a much stronger position than Chicago and New York, both of which lost early in voting for the 2016 and 2012 games. Since Chicago's humiliating, first-ballot exit five years ago, the USOC has worked hard to repair its contentious relationship with the International Olympic Committee.

The USOC is now in such good standing that Probst, who'd only been chairman for a year before the 2016 vote, is now an IOC member. Several IOC members have been public in their support for a U.S. bid for 2024, and President Thomas Bach had said any of the four American cities would "no doubt present a strong bid."

The IOC will meet with all prospective applicants Oct. 7-9 in Lausanne, Switzerland, and cities will have until Jan. 8, 2016 to submit official bids. The 2024 host will be selected by the IOC in 2017.

"Our goal is to host an Olympic and Paralympic Games that are innovative, walkable and hospitable to all," Boston Mayor Marty Walsh said in a statement. "Boston hopes to welcome the world's greatest athletes to one of the world's great cities."

Boston is one of the United States' most iconic cities, with a rich history that dates back to the colonial days. While that surely appealed to the USOC, so did Boston's compact plan, which will rely heavily on public transit, and large number of existing venues – ideas Bach has championed after the bloated budgets of the Sochi and Rio Olympics.

Boston is home to more than a dozen colleges and universities, and organizers have already said they will have a big role. Archery and fencing, for example, could be held on the MIT campus, while dorms at Boston University and Northeastern could be used for media housing.

Boston also is proposing a "modular" Olympic Stadium. Instead of building a massive stadium that gets little use after the games end, as is typical in many Olympic cities, Boston organizers have said theirs can be repurposed, either reduced in size or dismantled and used at a different site.

London is doing something similar with its Olympic stadium, turning it over to one of the city's soccer teams.