Los Angeles presents bid for Summer Games
Leaders of Los Angeles’ bid for the 2024Olympics began making their pitch to members of the IOC, talking up the city and the financial benefits of bringing the Games to Southern California.
LOS ANGELES >> Leaders of Los Angeles’ bid for the 2024 Olympics began making their pitch Wednesday to members of the International Olympic Committee, talking up the city and the financial benefits of bringing the Games to Southern California.
IOC Evaluation Commission Chairman Patrick Baumann kicked off the meeting with opening remarks, then key members of the Los Angeles bid addressed IOC members at a downtown hotel.
LA2024 chairman Casey Wasserman, IOC members Anita DeFrantz and Angela Ruggiero, U. S. Olympic Committee chairman Larry Probst and Mayor Eric Garcetti took turns touting the city’s benefits and advantages before the session was closed tomedia.
“It’s not just about the 2024 Games, it’s about sustainability and relevancy of every Games after,” Garcetti said.
IOC members are spending three days in Los Angeles touring proposed venues, including the historic Rose Bowl and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Both were used in the 1932 and 1984 Games hosted by the city.
Probst noted that L. A.’ s bid includes $ 50 million for spending on improving the athletes’ experience.
“We can do this because we don’t have to build a single new venue,” he said.
The L. A. bid organizers are putting their plans on display at a time of uncertainty in the race for these Games.
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 Peru. The IOC is considering a proposal to use that meeting to award the next two Olympics — 2024 and 2028. That means one to each city.
Paris has said it’s only interested in 2024; Los Angeles is emphasizing that its bid “was created for this moment in time,” Wasserman told the IOC.
The contest for the 2024 Games has been messy.
The race began with five cities, but Rome, Hamburg, Germany, and Budapest, Hungary, all pulled out.
The IOC is eager to keep costs in check after decades of runaway spending, and L. A. has made its lean budget a selling point.
The L. A. bid requires no new construction of permanent venues. It projects spending $ 5.3 billion, which would be around one- third of what Tokyo is expected to spend for 2020.