Los Angeles could land Olympic Games, but which year?
LOS ANGELES: Leaders in Los Angeles will guide their International Olympic Committee (IOC) guests from the Hollywood Hills to Santa Monica Beach to a construction site that will someday be a $2.6 billion NFL stadium that can also host soccer games.
If this week’s tour is a success, Los Angeles will earn the chance to host its third Olympics. But which Olympics? Officially, Los Angeles and Paris are the only two bidders left for the 2024 Games that will be awarded in September at a meeting of Olympic leaders in Lima, Peru. On the table, however, is a proposal to use that meeting to dole out the next two Olympics — 2024 and 2028 — one to each city.
IOC President Thomas Bach said he wants to avoid producing so many losers in the multimillion-dollar Olympic-bidding game. Unsaid is Bach’s need to avoid another bidding debacle, similar to the 2024 contest, if the rules remain the same for 2028.
The 2024 race began with five cities, but slowly, awkwardly, tapered down to two, after Rome; Hamburg, Germany; and Budapest, Hungary; all pulled out. And that is not including the embarrassment the US Olympic Committee (USOC) suffered when its first candidate city, Boston, stepped aside because of tepid — or, some might say, barely existent — public support. Like Paris, Los Angeles is sticking to the party line, insisting it is in the mix only for 2024.
“Los Angeles is the right city for 2024 at this important time for the Olympic Movement and is only bidding for 2024,” LA 2024 Chairman Casey Wasserman said.
The 2024-28 issue is hardly the only unpredictable factor in a bidding process that has grown more confusing, even as the number of candidates dwindled.
A look at the key issues Los Angeles faces as it hosts the evaluation visit Tuesday through Friday:
POLITICS: When US President Donald Trump first issued his executive order temporarily banning refugees and immigrants from seven predominantly Muslim countries, it threw some Olympic sports into flux: Namely, the US wrestling team was scheduled for a trip to Iran, which was one of the banned countries.
That issue was worked out, and Trump’s order is stalled in court, but his presence will certainly be felt.
“Both countries have a lot going on politically that can be game-changers at any minute,” said Jules Boykoff, a professor at Pacific University in Oregon who has written widely on the Olympics movement.
When centrist Emmanuel Macron defeated farright candidate Marine Le Pen in France’s presidential election, it took some uncertainty out of the Paris bid. Meanwhile, Trump’s populist, “America-first” message is hardly the arms-wide-open stance the Olympics embrace. And yet, for his part, Trump is backing the