So much for the USOC keeping that list of cities still in consideration for a 2024 Olympic bid private. You knew it wouldn't take long for someone to leak the news, so they decided to nip that in the bud and make the announcement themselves. It's down to four cities, none of which is surprising. And with only Boston, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington left in the running, it now seems inevitable that the USOC will bid to host the 2024 Olympics.
Whichever city it is will face some incredibly stiff competition. It'll be the 100th anniversary of the 1924 Paris Games, so you know there's going to be a Paris bid. Rome looks likely, as well. And after finishing second to Tokyo for the 2020 Olympics, another bid from Istanbul would make a lot of sense. Then there's South Africa. They didn't bid for 2020, but the IOC wants an Olympics in Africa very badly, so whichever South African city bids (most likely either Durban or Johannesburg) would be viewed very favorably. However, now that the revenue-sharing thing is settled, the IOC has also made it clear they'd like to have the Olympics return to the U.S. as soon as possible. So, it's going to be very interesting to watch this bid process play out. (Doha has said they want to bid, too, but they're not having three straight Olympics in Asia.)
As soon as they mentioned their interest, you knew Los Angeles would be considered very seriously by the USOC. LA has hosted the Olympics twice, including the very successful 1984 Games, and seems to want the Olympics the most. They have all the necessary facilities and would likely reuse many of the same venues from 1984. It's also LA. They've got the money and the city has the international cache that's becoming more and more necessary.
However, one of LA's greatest strengths might also be one of its greatest drawbacks. London is the only city that has hosted the Olympics three times. Should they both be candidates for 2024, Paris and Los Angeles would be vying to become the second. Except Paris and London are really the only cities in their respective countries that could reasonably handle the job. In the U.S., that's not the case. There are plenty of American cities that would be capable of hosting a successful Olympics. Giving LA a third opportunity to do so before giving any of those cities a chance for the first time doesn't seem right.
Among those American cities that would make an ideal Olympic host: the one in Northern California. The IOC has been pushing the USOC to put forth a San Francisco bid for years. That leads me to believe the IOC wants to go to San Francisco, and that a San Francisco bid would be the one that has the greatest chance of success. (Plus, there's the gorgeous scenic shot of the Golden Gate Bridge that would rival the shots we're going to see of Christ the Redeemer and Copacabana from Rio.)
From what I've read, there are residents and politicos in the Bay Area who don't seem too keen on an Olympic bid. Evidently, according to those articles, the only reason San Francisco is being considered is because the mayor responded "Yes" when the USOC sent out a letter trying to gauge interest from a number of different cities.
Whether or not that's true, I don't know. But it is clear that any "San Francisco" Olympics would include the rest of the Bay Area, which is both good and bad. San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose and Santa Clara are all close enough to each other that the Games wouldn't be too spread out, and all four cities are big enough to accommodate the millions of fans from around the world. Stanford and Cal could even pitch in, too. The point is, there are plenty of existing facilities in the Bay Area (as long as one of them isn't that piece of crap "stadium" the A's and Raiders play in). The cost wouldn't be that significant an issue, either (it is the location of Silicon Valley, after all).
I've been advocating a San Francisco Olympics for years. It's the one city that seems to make the most sense for the U.S. There are two other advantages that San Francisco and LA have over Boston and Washington. First, the weather in California is beautiful about 340 days a year. That includes the Summer. In fact, you could have the Olympics in San Francisco at pretty much any time of year and the weather would be the same. Beautiful.
More importantly, though, they're both on the West Coast. NBC likes that, and if you don't think NBC has an influence on the USOC you're sadly mistaken. No tape delays anywhere, with competition still able to take place at reasonable times.
The weather is probably the biggest thing that would hold the Washington bid back. The IOC likes capitals, which works in Washington's favor, but unlike California, the weather in the Beltway over the summer is hot, humid and sticky. We saw the problems with that in Atlanta. There's also some concern that Washington is too government-influenced. I'm not sure that's actually the case, but it does make me wonder about the levels of public support from people who actually live in the DC area.
Finally, we've got Boston, the only other American city that seems to be as gung-ho about hosting the Olympics as Los Angeles. Unfortunately, being enthusiastic about bidding doesn't make you the best-equipped to make an actual bid. Boston is a wonderful, historic city, but they can't rely on existing venues. There are too many old ones that would need to be upgraded. The Olympics have never been in the Northeast Corridor, but the bids from Boston and Washington simply aren't as strong as the two from the California cities.
There's still time (they won't even begin the process until picking a city for the 2022 Winter Olympics next year), and whether or not the USOC is even going to bid is still a question that needs to be answered, but I think it's likely that there will be an American candidate. Going against what will likely be a loaded, high-profile field similar to the one New York went up against in 2005, the U.S. needs to present the city it feels has the best chance of winning. That's why I'd go with San Francisco.
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