A flurry of last-minute pressure from the United States Olympic Committee and strategic pushback from Mayor Martin J. Walsh -- plus a long stall by Gov. Charlie Baker -- gave everyone the face-saving outs they needed to douse the torch of Boston's ill-fated bid to host the 2024 Summer Games, close observers said yesterday.
Rikk Larsen, the former executive director of a committee that pitched a Boston Olympic bid in the mid-'90s, said the USOC and local pols had likely been looking for a way to save face and bail as public support continued to lag in the low- to mid-40s.
"For Mayor Walsh, this was becoming an albatross," Larsen said. "He has enough to do without worrying about the financial implications of this. The same thing goes for Gov. Baker. They were behind the scenes looking for a way to graciously end it -- that's my sense. I think that came very quickly in the last week."
The winding down -- dating back as far as March, when an anxious USOC reportedly told Boston 2024 it wanted to see improved public support -- concluded yesterday morning, when Walsh called a hastily arranged press conference to announce he would not bow to USOC pressure to commit to a taxpayer-backed guarantee for the 2024 Games.
GTFO!