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Charlie Jacobs announces basketball and gymnastics to be held at TD Garden if Boston wins Olympic bid

Charlie Jacobs, CEO of Delaware North’s Boston Holdings, on Thursday announced that if Boston wins charlieannouncement-5001962its bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games, TD Garden will be the site of men’s and women’s basketball, Paralympic basketball, and gymnastics.
 
The Delaware North-owned-and-operated TD Garden serves as home to the NHL’s Boston Bruins, the NBA’s Boston Celtics and frequent world-class concerts and events.
 
“We are all proud of Boston and the memories in this building – including the Olympic trials here at the TD Garden [in 2014] – and I’m looking forward to the next chapter, as I hope all of you are as well,” Jacobs said during a press conference on the Garden’s parquet floor. “We’re in the process of finishing up a $70 million upgrade here to this building, and we want to make this venue perfect for not only national events, but the international theater of the Olympics itself here in 2024.”
 
Steve Pagliuca, co-owner of the Boston Celtics and co-chair of the Boston 2024 Olympics finance olympicteam-9240367committee, was also on hand for the press conference, as were TD Garden President Amy Latimer, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman and Celtics Hall of Famer Jo Jo White.
 
“We’ve had a great partnership with the Bruins and the Garden for many, many years,” Pagliuca said. “The fact that we have such iconic sports venues in Boston like the Garden puts Boston in a very strong competitive position to win the games on the world stage. …Boston sports fans have grown up watching the Celtics and the Bruins at the Garden, and the many championships here, and the Olympics and the Paralympics will just top that off with a once-in-a-lifetime thrill, I think, for all of us.”
 
Walsh recalled the experience of being present at TD Garden for the 2014 U.S. Figure Skating Championships, which served as the Olympic trials for the games in Sochi. He said the experience was unlike any other he had ever had at the Garden.
 
“I had a chance to watch all the young American athletes prepare and see how they were getting ready to hit the ice to go on to Sochi, and I had the chance to watch the crowd, and the crowd that was in this building was electrifying because they were so excited,” Walsh said. “They were so excited about seeing young athletes here performing that we were going to see performing three weeks later in Sochi.”
 
Walsh and Pagliuca emphasized that the Garden offers the ideal venue to host two of the games’ most popular events.
 
“I know that there’s been a lot of questions around the Olympics over the last several months, and it’s great to see now as this plan unfolds [what] the venues are going to [be], and where the events are going to happen,” Walsh said. “It’s adding some reality to what we’ve been talking about over the course of the last several months here in Boston and in Massachusetts.”
 
Video from the press conference can be seen by clicking here.   
 
Group Photo Caption: Pictured from left to right are Boston Celtics Hall of Famer Jo Jo White, Boston Mayor Martin Walsh, Olympic gold medalist Aly Raisman, Boston Celtics co-owner Steve Pagliuca, CEO of Delaware North’s Boston Holdings Charlie Jacobs and TD Garden President Amy Latimer.