Gold: IOC Officially Names Paris for 2024, Los Angeles For 2028 Summer Games
By Barry Janoff
September 13, 2017: In what was a formality and an inevitable decision due to attrition, the International Olympic Committee today officially approved Paris and Los Angeles as the host cities for the 2024 Summer Games and 2028 Summer Games, respectively,
The vote, which was unanimous, was called a "win-win-win situation for Paris, Los Angeles and the IOC," by IOC president Thomas Bach.
"It’s hard to imagine something better. Ensuring the stability of the Olympic Games for the athletes of the world for the next 11 years is something extraordinary," Bach said after the decision during an IOC meeting in Lima, Peru, which was attended by IOC members and representatives of both the Paris and Los Angeles Olympic Committees.
The decision was called "historic" by Bach as host cities for two separate Games were named at once for the first time.
That followed an IOC decision in July to change its bylaws to allow for such a situation, which in turn followed numerous cities dropping out of the bidding process, leaving Paris and Los Angeles as the last two destinations still in the running.
Budapest, Rome, Hamburg and Boston dropped out or declined to bid on the 2024 Summer Games after indicating their participation.
Both cities were initially vying for the 2024 Games until what the IOC called a Tripartite Agreement was worked out among the parties, which would see Paris host the ’24 Olympics and Los Angeles the ’28 Games.
The Paris Summer Games are scheduled for Aug. 2-18, 2024 and the Paralympic Games would be held Sept. 4-15, 2024.
"Our willingness to change our bid from 2024 to 2028 shows the strength of our commitment to the Olympics,” said Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti, who was in Lima alongside LA2024 committee chairman Casey Wasserman. “This is not 11 years away. This begins today. I won’t be mayor in 2028 but I will be a resident.”
Paris hosted the Games in 1900 and 1924. Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984.
The last time the Summer Olympics were in the U.S. was 1996 in Atlanta. Salt Lake City hosted the Winter Games in 2002.
"These are two great cities from two great countries with a great Olympic history," said Bach. "Both cities are very enthusiastic about the Games and are promoting the Olympic spirit in a fantastic way."
The decision came with 1,044 days to go to the next Summer Games, 2020 in Tokyo (July 24-Aug. 9).
According to Yoshiko Mori, Tokyo Olympic Games Committee president, 43 domestic partners are signed for those Games, in addition to 13 IOC top tier partners that include Bridgestone, Panasonic and Toyota, each with headquarters in the nation.
"We continue to look for ways to reduce costs as we continue to add sponsors," said Mori in a presentation that preceded the IOC Paris-Los Angeles decision.
"It’s hard to imagine something better. Ensuring the stability of the Olympic Games for the athletes of the world for the next 11 years is extraordinary."
Tokyo organizers said earlier this summer that the estimated cost for the 2020 Games is $17 billion, nearly double the $8.9 billion estimated cost when Tokyo was awarded the Games in 2013 and about seven times the original $2.5 billion estimate.
According to John Coates, IOC vp, the Tokyo government and Olympic committee continue to look to cut costs for 2020. "They will have no problem funding the Games but it is a bad look if we have an Olympics that costs too much."
A study from Oxford University in 2016 said that it costs an average of $8.9 billion to host the Summer Games. Industry analysts said that Rio de Janeiro’s outlay for the 2016 Summer Olympics was at least $11 billion and perhaps as high as $20 billion.
Paris and Los Angeles in their respective bids for the 2024 Games put their budgets between $6-$8 billion. Those numbers likely would change given the time span between winning their bids and the actual Games themselves.
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