Moment Of Truth Approaching For Boston's 2024 Olympic Bid

BOSTON (CBS) -- The moment of truth for Boston's hopes of hosting the 2024 Summer Olympic Games is at hand, but not without one last flurry of debate over what's become a locally-controversial idea.

Boston 2024, the group of business and civic leaders behind the city's bid, has refused to release details of its proposal, but some of its members have predicted they have a 75% chance of beating out Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles for the right to compete with international cities.

And today the Boston Globe ran an op-ed piece by Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, arguing that the IOC had reformed its standards for Olympic venues in ways that might address the cost concerns voiced by local skeptics.

But Chris Dempsey of the group No Boston Olympics disagrees.

"What he's done in that piece is he's promised a different process but he hasn't promised different outcomes, it's not something that he can guarantee. The IOC is not willing to take the financial risk away from cities," he tells WBZ-TV.

Meanwhile, an article in yesterday's New York Times openly mocked the organizers' claims of how much a Boston games would cost, suggesting it might be "carrying yankee frugality too far."

Also fueling the anti-Olympics argument is bad news out of Rio, host of the 2016 summer games, which is struggling with what an IOC officials calls the "worst preparations ever."

Boston 2024 didn't provide a spokesman to comment today. But Dempsey says he believes the backlash has seriously damaged their effort to make Boston an Olympic host city.

"The IOC has talked about awarding the bid to a city where there's public support, and if you look at the polls in Boston, it's really not clear at all that the people of Boston support this bid," Dempsey said. "They really want their elected leaders and civic leaders focused on education, health care, core infrastructure, not a three-week event that's 10 years out."

The USOC might not make a pick at their Thursday meeting in Denver. But if they do, they will fly to that city for a Friday press briefing, with the bid due to be finalized by September.

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