As we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Sydney Games (which still rank as my second-favorite Olympics of all-time, behind only London), today was an important day for the IOC for another reason. Today was the deadline for countries to submit their bids to host the 2024 Olympics, which will be the first bid process since the 2022 disaster, as well as the first held completely under the Agenda 2020 reforms. While the IOC won't confirm the official list until sometime on Wednesday, we know the five contenders. It's possible that there's a sixth that wasn't announced publicly ahead of time, but there's at least five for sure.
That list does not include Toronto. After the success of the Pan Am Games, many assumed Toronto was going to bid. The Canadian Olympic Committee had the letter to the IOC and the application fee ready to go. They were just waiting on Toronto Mayor John Tory to say "Yes," Except he didn't. Toronto's going to sit out the bidding for 2024, but hasn't ruled out doing so in the future. This just isn't the right time, Tory said.
Here's exactly what Tory said in the press conference announcing that Toronto wasn't going to enter the race: "I can't look people in the eye at this point in our city's development and tell them that an Olympic bid is the best use of our time, our energy, or our investment. Toronto can be an Olympic city; we are already a world-class city. I have no doubt, the Olympic Games is a significant opportunity that would put the eyes of the world on Toronto. I love this city, and I want nothing more than to show the world our spirit, our people, our strength and our values. And I believe that one day, Toronto will be a great venue for the Olympic Games. But not in 2024. I am not saying no to the Olympics. I am saying 'not this time.'"
This wasn't a Boston-like situation. There's support for the Olympics in Toronto. I'd suspect that we see a Toronto bid for 2028 or 2032. They've bid twice before, finishing third for 1996 and second for 2008, and they will again. But I actually think it was wise for Toronto to sit this one out. A leading Canadian Olympic official (the head of Toronto's 1996 bid) suspects that these Games will go to Europe. And I happen to agree with him. With the next two Olympics set for Rio and Tokyo, 2024 will be 12 years since the London Games. The gap between European Olympics has never been longer.
Olympic bid regular Istanbul is joining Toronto on the sidelines, and so is (presumably) Doha, although that's likely because Qatari officials know there's absolutely no chance the IOC will go to Asia four consecutive times. Likewise, 2024 won't be that long-awaited first Olympics in Africa. Durban, South Africa is hosting the 2022 Commonwealth Games, so they're focusing on that right now. Once South Africa bids, it will win (and they know it). We'll just have to wait until 2028 or 2032 for that African Olympics. Surprisingly, Madrid is also taking a pass. After finishing second, second, third in the last three Olympic races, the Spanish capital may just be taking a break while they gear up for another bid in the future.
Of the five cities we're left with, four of them are in Europe. Paris, Rome, Hamburg and Budapest are confirmed bidders, with Baku, Azerbaijan, which just hosted the inaugural European Games, as that wild card potential sixth bidder. The only outlier is Los Angeles, the American bid that the IOC wanted (and a better bid than Boston that, unlike its predecessor, actually has a chance of winning). It's the first time since LA ran unopposed for 1984 that there are no bids from outside Europe or the U.S. (Rio and Havana were cut before the final round for 2012), but that's OK. Because the IOC has quality bids from World cities. And, more importantly, they won't be going back to the same exact part of the world a fourth consecutive time. This race is exactly what they were looking for after the nightmare that was the 2022 bid process.
IOC President Thomas Bach has said that as part of the Agenda 2020 changes, there won't be a cut down and all cities that enter an Olympic bid race will be there until the finish line. While I don't think that would be entirely feasible if there were, say, eight or more bids, it's not relevant in this case, since four or five is generally the IOC's preferred number of finalists anyway.
On the surface, Budapest and Hamburg appear to be the long shots. Hungary is the only nation in the Top 10 on the all-time Olympic medal standings to have never hosted, which the Budapest organizers were sure to point out. Budapest has bid several times, but not since 1960. Now they're back in the mix against a strong field. They aren't going to win, but I think they know that. This is more about learning for the future.
Hamburg won a domestic race against Berlin and would have a very compact Games, which is definitely a great selling point. Like Budapest, Hamburg has never hosted either. And President Bach is German, so you know he likes having a German city in the running. However, public support is nowhere near the level it is in the other cities, and a public referendum is due in November that may end up killing the bid.
So, that leaves us with Rome, the 1960 host city, as well as two-time hosts Paris and Los Angeles. Rome was considered the favorites for 2020 before withdrawing in 2012 due to the Italian economic crisis. With that situation resolved, Rome was the first city to express interest for 2024. Rome has history on its side and will have one of the strongest bids. But Torino just hosted the Winter Games in 2006, so that may work against them.
I'm not alone in thinking Rome will probably finish third in this race. As the race begins, two long years before the host is chosen, the two front runners appear to be Paris and Los Angeles, which are both hoping to join London as the only three-time Olympic hosts. And they've both got plenty of things working in their favor. The 2024 Games will mark the 100th anniversary of the last time Paris hosted and many feel the city is due after several second-place finishes (in 2005, Paris lost to London by two votes for 2012). Many also feel the U.S. is due for a turn to host again, and LA just might be the city to end that 28-year gap since Atlanta.
Right now, Paris is the clubhouse favorite, but they don't want to hear it. They were the favorites for 2012, too, and those Games ended up in London. Paris has learned from its recent failed bids, though, and this time they've got a number of scenic venues planned to display one of the most beautiful cities on Earth in all its glory. In addition, hosting the Olympics has become a national priority for the French government. They want the Paris bid to finally succeed. It's almost a matter of national pride. I don't want to say Paris is arrogant enough to think they "deserve" these Games, but there are a lot of outside observers who feel that way. And if the IOC members (a majority of whom are European) want to go back to Europe, that certainly works in Paris's favor.
The main challenger Paris has to deal with will probably be Los Angeles, which will be celebrating an anniversary of its own in 2024. It'll be the 40th anniversary of the 1984 Games that many credit with saving the Olympic movement. What LA did in a span of a about three weeks after Boston dropped out is nothing short of remarkable. It takes months, if not years, to get an Olympic bid together, and they did it in a couple of weeks! The IOC made it clear they wanted a U.S. bid, and it would not have been good if Boston knocked out the U.S. completely. It'll be interesting to see how things work out after a strained relationship between the USOC and IOC led to the embarrassing defeats for New York 2012 and Chicago 2016. That relationship has been repaired and many in the Olympic community know they need the Olympics to return to the United States soon. And LA might be the best place for that to happen.
We're still two years away from finding out the host city of the 2024 Olympics, but this race already has the makings of an intriguing one. It's not quite the marquee field that we saw in the running for 2012 (where the finalists were Madrid and Moscow in addition to London, Paris and New York), but it's close. More importantly, it's what the IOC needed after nobody wanted to host the 2022 Winter Games.
In 2024, the Olympics will take place in either Europe or Los Angeles. The most wonderful thing, though, is that none of the five would be a bad host. They're all Olympic cities. Three of the five have been before. Only one can be again. We'll have to wait two years to find out who, though. For the five bid cities, it'll be two long years.
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