BOSTON (AP) – The grassroots activists who upended Boston’s well-funded and star-studded Olympic bid are exporting their expertise.
Leaders of No Boston 2024 and No Boston Olympics are showing opposition groups elsewhere how they helped turn public opinion against the city’s bid for the 2024 summer games, forcing organizers to withdraw.
Some were in contact with organizers in Toronto, which briefly considered hosting the 2024 games before deciding not to apply in September. And a few travelled to Germany to speak to the Olympic opposition in Hamburg just weeks before that city rejected a bid of its own to host the 2024 games.
“Our primary motivation was always Boston and what’s right for this city,” said Christopher Dempsey, a co-founder of the No Boston Olympics group that spoke in Hamburg. “But if there’s an opportunity to share what happened here – which I believe was a very powerful thing – then we’re not going to turn that down.”
Artur Bruckmann, a graduate student the University of Hamburg, said Boston is “proof that even a very small group of people with very little money can overcome one of the world’s biggest corporations” – the International Olympic Committee.