Senate bill calls for US uniforms in future Olympics to be made in America

By Callum Borchers, Globe Correspondent

The United States Olympic Committee agreed Monday to the provisions of a Senate bill that called for ceremonial uniforms worn by US athletes at future Olympics to be made in America.

A dozen senators sponsored the bill last week after news reports revealed that American athletes will wear uniforms manufactured in China at the opening ceremony of the London Olympics. The issue gained extra steam in political circles because uniforms for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City -- organized by Mitt Romney, now the presumptive Republican nominee for president -- were also made outside the country.

Romney has declined to comment on the foreign origin of this year’s Olympic uniforms.

But in “Turnaround,” his book about the Salt Lake City Games, Romney expressed his displeasure with the outsourcing of uniforms in 2002.

“The USOC announced that they had signed a sponsor to provide the uniforms that the American athletes would be wearing in opening ceremonies,” Romney wrote. “Roots -- of Canada (!) -- would get the honor.”

Romney was chief executive of the Salt Lake Organizing Committee , an entity separate from the USOC, which did not make the uniform deal.

The agreement announced Monday will require uniform supplier Ralph Lauren to outfit American athletes with domestically produced uniforms beginning with the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi, Russia.