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LA, Paris Present Olympic Plans Ahead of 2024-2028 Decision

by Associated Press

   LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND --

   Los Angeles has presented its Olympic hosting plans to IOC members, who
   should vote later Tuesday to ensure the Summer Games return to the
   United States.

   Going before bid rival Paris supported by French President Emmanuel
   Macron, LA's team led by Mayor Eric Garcetti presented 45 minutes of
   videos and speeches in a closed-door session about how they would host
   the 2024 Olympics.
   "[This team] has presented I think the strongest bid in modern Olympic
   history,'' Garcetti said at a news conference.
   Still, it could be a 2028 Olympics in LA that will be the first
   American-hosted games since 1996 in Atlanta.
   The IOC members will vote later Tuesday on President Thomas Bach's
   proposal to also award the 2028 hosting rights when they next meet on
   Sept. 13 in Lima, Peru.
   The dual award can give the IOC a decade of stability with two
   world-class cities after years of busted budgets for hosts and
   political defeats to sink potential candidates. It also guards against
   a 2024 loser refusing to bid again for 2028.
   Making two winners avoids inflicting a third recent defeat on Paris --
   which lost with bids for the 2008 and 2012 Olympics -- and the United
   States. New York and Chicago both lost heavily for 2012 and 2016,
   respectively.
   "We can't afford to lose the United States," Garcetti said of the
   Olympic movement. "Both of us will find it more and more difficult to
   convince cities -- whether it's Paris, Los Angeles or other American
   cities -- to really go into this process if one of us gets turned
   down.''
   Bach has said the idea of a double award was presented to him at a
   lunch last year by friends whom the IOC president declined to identify
   in a recent interview with French daily L'Equipe.
   The LA bid team declined to comment Tuesday whether the suggestion came
   from its supporters.
   "He [Bach] has good friends who gave him good advice,'' LA bid chairman
   Casey Wasserman said.
   If Tuesday's vote passes as expected, the Bach-chaired IOC executive
   board could be empowered to broker a future deal on picking the 2024
   host ahead of the Peru meeting.
   Paris is favored to go first exactly 100 years after its last Olympic
   hosting duty in 1924.
   "We look forward to working together maybe not in competition but
   collaboration with Paris," Garcetti said.