USA Gymnastics is bidding to host the 2015 world championships, a full-team event that will be the main qualifier for the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. If the U.S. bid is successful, worlds would be held in early October in Orlando at the Amway Center, which opened last fall and is home to the NBA's Orlando Magic.
"There's so much going on in the sports world in the United States on an ongoing basis that you want to bring the highest level of attention to an event like this. Doing it in the year before an Olympics allows us to do that," Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics, said Thursday. "This has the prestige, the magnitude that you want of being a full-team event, a qualifier for the Olympic Games. It's also, from a business standpoint, at a time we think can get people's attention."
The International Gymnastics Federation will choose a 2015 host next month. Paris and Glasgow, Scotland, also are bidding for the event.
The United States has hosted worlds three times: in Fort Worth, Texas, in 1979; in Indianapolis in 1991; and, most recently, in Anaheim, Calif., in 2003. The U.S. women won their first world team title in Anaheim, and Paul Hamm became the first U.S. man to win the all-around championship.
Those worlds also served as a springboard for the Athens Games, when Americans won nine medals, then a record for a non-boycotted games, including Hamm and Carly Patterson's sweep of the all-around titles and silvers by both the men's and women's teams.
"It really does give your country a boost," Penny said. "Not everyone can go to an Olympic Games. Not all athletes can compete at an Olympic Games. Hosting a world championships means giving more athletes, more fans, an opportunity to touch the sport at the highest level. There's just a tremendous intrinsic value to having a world championships in the U.S. that goes beyond dollars and cents."
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