LA agrees to host 2028 Games, Paris set for 2024

TIL Desk Sports/ Los Angeles announced its intent to host the 2028 Olympics, paving the way for Paris to host in 2024 in a deal hailed as a win-win-win for both cities and the Olympic movement.

“I am proud to announce the Olympic Games are coming back to the United States of America,” Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti said at ceremony at the StubHub Center stadium.

“In 2028, we are bringing the Games back to LA, one of the great capitals of the Olympic movement. A city that has always been a Games changer and will be again in 2028.”

Los Angeles had been in a race with Paris to follow Tokyo 2020 as the 2024 host with the winner to be named by the IOC on September 13 in Lima. But the possibility that Los Angeles would abandon a 2024 bid and instead accept the 2028 Games has been growing since the IOC decided in July that it would attempt to award both Games at its Lima meeting.

Paris had remained insistent on hosting in 2024, on the 100th anniversary of the city’s 1924 Olympics. LA officials, who had put forward a USD 5.3 billion bid for 2024, said an agreement had been reached with the IOC on financial considerations that would make waiting an extra four years feasible.