USOC Confirms Los Angeles as “Preferred Choice” for 2024 Olympic Games

The 2024 Olympic host city will be selected by the IOC on September 15, 2017 in Lima, Peru. If successful, it would join London (1908, 1948, 2012) as the only cities to host the Olympic Games more than twice. Blackman expects the deal to be done by the end of the month, but USOC officials declined to discuss the specific issues they need to resolve.

Wednesday’s news comes two weeks after the USOC dropped a bid for Boston that had been running short on support.

Los Angeles – which finished second in a contest to name the American candidate last winter – quickly emerged as the leading replacement. He mentioned that he had talked with LA Mayor Eric Garcetti and he indicated that he understands that and it would be a serious challenge if a city wasn’t going to agree to sign.

The centerpiece of an L.A. Olympics would be the Memorial Coliseum, which was also used in the city’s last two Olympics – in 1932 and 1984.

Los Angeles was one of four finalists to be America’s choice to host the games before Boston was chosen. Boston was in the 40s.

“I think it would be a lost opportunity”, said Blackmun.

The proposed budget for the games would be $4.1 billion, but city officials say LA would more than make up for it in ticket sales and sponsorships. Those numbers, of course, are only estimates, and have, for decades, consistently run over. Los Angeles sought to be the U.S. candidate to host the 2016 Games but was beaten by Chicago, whose bid was ultimately rejected by the worldwide Olympic Committee in favor of Rio de Janeiro.

“The board authorized Scott Blackmun to work with Los Angeles to further explore the viability of a bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games”.

Probst added, “I think that the experience of hosting the Games in 1984 was a tremendously positive experience and a lot of people remember that fondly”. “It left a great legacy for the city”.

Those Olympics, boycotted by the Soviet Union, put Carl Lewis and Mary Lou Retton on center stage and, in many ways, transformed the games into the mega-billion-dollar event they are today. Blackmun pointed out that Los Angeles had the support of the Congressional delegation, City Council, the Governor’s office, and he felt there was very strong alignment from everyone on the political side.

The bet in Massachusetts experienced reduced degrees of public assistance – forms revealed significantly less than 40 percent of the populace as the community authorities hesitated about underwriting the expense, supported a bet. That became a major sticking point as the Boston bid disintegrated.

Paris, Rome and Hamburg are also expected to bid for the Games.