Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday he was committed to bringing the Olympics back to Los Angeles, while reaffirming support for a plan to award the 2024 and 2028 Games together.
Garcetti made the comments in Lausanne, Switzerland — home of the International Olympic Committee — on the eve of a crunch meeting where Los Angeles and rival 2024 candidate Paris will make a fresh pitch to IOC voters.
“We have two missions: one, which is to bring America back to the Olympics and the Olympics back to America and two, which is to bring the Olympics back to Los Angeles,” Garcetti told reporters, flanked by IOC chief Thomas Bach.
Bach had escorted Garcetti and Los Angeles bid leaders including former sprint champion Michael Johnson on a tour of the lakeside Olympic Museum.
The Paris 2024 team was due at the museum later Monday evening, led by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Paris is the favourite to secure the 2024 Games, but Bach has pushed a plan that could see both the French capital and the Californian metropolis emerge this week as winners.
IOC members are on Tuesday expected to rubber stamp a plan to award both 2024 and 2028 at the organisation’s main annual meeting in September in Lima, Peru.
If adopted, that plan would guarantee that Paris and LA host the next two Summer Games.
Los Angeles has indicated it was open to waiting until 2028, while Paris has held a firmer line, insisting it was committed to 2024, the centenary anniversary of the last Games in the French capital.
Garcetti made no direct mention of the battle for 2024, but said he and Los Angeles bid chairman Casey Wasserman “welcome” the double hosting move.
Los Angeles, which last hosted the Games in 1984, “can be the ideal Olympic city”, Garcetti said.
“In this crazy moment in the world, when so much is unsure let’s bring what we know to be true and good and that is the Olympic movement,” added Garcetti, a prominent member of the Democratic Party who has been cited in many US media reports as a possible challenger to President Donald Trump in 2020.
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