Philadelphia is exploring a bid to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympics Games, the city’s Mayor Michael Nutter has revealed.
Nutter was responding to a letter from the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) sent to 35 cities across the country in February seeking potential host cities for the event.
“The Philadelphia region has enthusiastically embraced the prospect of bidding on and hosting a future Olympic Games, and we look forward with great anticipation to the opportunity to work with the USOC on this project,” Nutter said.
“I am honored to confirm our wholehearted commitment and interest in working with the USOC to bid on the 2024 Games,” Nutter wrote to Scott Blackmun, chief executive of the USOC.
“Philadelphia, the birthplace of democracy, is a city founded on faith tolerance and brotherly love – values which are wholly consistent with the spirit of the Olympics,” Nutter said.
Philadelphia, known as the city of Brotherly Love, was founded by William Penn and at one time was the second busiest port in the British Empire, behind London.
During the American Revolution, Philadelphia played an instrumental role as a meeting place for the Founding Fathers of the United States, who signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the Constitution in 1787.
Philadelphia was one of the nation’s capitals during the Revolutionary War, and the city served as the temporary capital while Washington, D.C., was under construction
The city is home to several major sports, including the Philadelphia Eagles of the National Football League, the Philadelphia Flyers of the National Hockey League, the Philadelphia Phillies in the National League of Major League Baseball, and the Philadelphia 76ers in the National Basketball Association.
Philadelphia, the second biggest city on the East Coast behind New York and the fifth most populous in the US, was among five cities that made presentations to the USOC in 2006 for the 2016 Games only for Chicago to be chosen as the U.S. nomination.
They were humiliated as they were voted out in the first round as the Games were awarded to Rio de Janeiro.
The US has not hosted the Summer Olympics since 1996 when they were held in Atlanta and are generally considered to have been the worst in recent history.
If they get the USOC nomination it would actually be Philadelphia’s fifth bid to host the Olympics, having tried unsuccessfully for 1920, 1948, 1952 and 1956 which were awarded to Antwerp, London, Helsinki and Melbourne respectively.
On the last two occasions they polled zero votes for 1952 and only one for 1956.
Several cities have expressed an interest – or are believed to have done so – in bidding for 2024, including Los Angeles and Seattle.
San Fransisco is another city set to announce they want to bid.
But, Chicago and Detroit are among the cities to have ruled themselves out.
The USOC do not have to choose a candidate until 2015, with the International Olympic Committee due to make the announcement of which city will host the Games in 2017.
Contact the writer of this story at duncan.mackay@insidethegames.biz. Inside the Games is an online blog of the London Organizing Committee that staged the 2012 London Games. The blog continues to cover issues that are important to the Olympic Movement. This article is reprinted here with permission of the blog editors.