U.S. Olympic Committee Won't Seek 2020 Summer Games After Chicago 2016 Failure

After the embarrassing failure of Chicago's bid for the 2016 Summer Games, the United States Olympic Committee has announced it won't put forward a candidate city for the 2020 Games.

"The cold and hard reality is Chicago spent approximately $80 million on its bid," USOC Chief Executive Scott Blackmuntold the Washington Post. "It's going to be difficult to get U.S. cities to continue to invest to that level unless they think they have a realistic chance of winning."

The USOC has had a strained relationship with the International Olympic Committee for many years, in part due to its domination of TV revenues from the Games. Its cavalier attitude toward the international community also hasn't helped America's Olympic image.

Larry Probst, chairman of the USOC, has spent most of his time at the Vancouver Games trying to repair that image, meeting with other delegations and building relationships. But after Chicago's 2016 failure, and New York's failed bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics four years earlier, the Committee understands that its reputation needs a lot of work.

"We don't have to look much further than what happened in the last two bid races," said USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky.

The last Olympics on U.S. soil was the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City.