Los Angeles is all but guaranteed to get the Olympic Games. The question is when, 2024 or 2028?
Los Angeles is all but guaranteed to host the Summer Games for a third time after Olympic leaders made the unusual decision Tuesday to name two winners in the bid race between L.A. and Paris, giving 2024 to one city and 2028 to the other.
After the historic vote by International Olympic Committee members gathered in Switzerland, one key question remained.
Can the cities agree on who goes second?
“We’re one step closer to making it happen,” L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti told reporters at a news conference in Lausanne. “I have full confidence we will get there.”
Even though his counterpart, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo, expressed similar optimism, the French have repeatedly dismissed the idea of waiting another four years. It has been widely speculated that L.A. bid leaders — who have been more flexible on the issue — will seek financial or other concessions in return for accepting 2028.
But if the IOC, L.A. and Paris cannot reach an accord, the final selection in mid-September will revert to a winner-take-all vote for 2024 only.
“We take nothing for granted,” Garcetti said. “Our job now is to work with the IOC, to forge a path forward for our city and for the future of [the Olympic] movement.”
The IOC convened this week’s session amid growing concerns about the massive cost of staging the Games.
Estimates for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics — though admittedly inexact — have ranged past $50 billion. Rio de Janeiro was left with a reported debt of $35-$40 million from the 2016 Summer Games.
In the 2024 race, Boston, Budapest, Hungary, Hamburg, Germany, and Rome backed away in response to public opposition, which IOC President Thomas Bach has labeled as the “new political reality.”