L.A. Mayor ERIC GARCETTI this week will lead the entire LA 2024 group to Rio to "promote their city's bid" to host the Summer Games. The 25-person contingent will "spend much of its time at the Rio Games getting a backstage look" through the IOC's "'observer program' and grabbing face time with IOC voters and influential officials from the federations that govern each sport." The LA 2024 delegation includes Chair CASEY WASSERMAN, CEO GENE SYKES and Vice Chair JANET EVANS (L.A. TIMES, 8/1).
BIG STATEMENT: In Newark, Steve Politi writes U.S. fencer IBTIHAJ MUHAMMAD "should be the flag bearer for Team USA." It is an "easy choice" at a "divisive time in our nation's history." Muhammad is a Muslim woman and "when she steps on the piste to begin competing next week, she'll do so wearing a hijab." Politi: "Imagine the statement ... that the U.S. athletes would make if a Muslim woman carried our flag at the Olympics with the world watching" (Newark STAR-LEDGER, 8/1).
BEAR NECESSITY: U.S. trapshooter COREY COGDELL-UNREIN, the wife of Bears DE MITCH UNREIN, will compete in the Rio Games on Aug. 7, four days before the Bears' preseason opener. Unrein said, "I wanted to go, but I knew I had obligations with the team, so I thought I would run it by coach (JOHN FOX). It never hurts to ask. He said unfortunately I would miss too many days. It's a day down there, it's a day competition, it's a full day back. I'd be jet-lagged when I got back and miss another day from that. And then we'd pretty much have to play that first preseason game and that would be a lot on me" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 7/30).
STOP THE PRESS: Olympic historian and author DAVID WALLECHINSKY has decided "not to update" his "The Complete Book Of The Olympics" prior to the Rio Games. First published in '84 for the L.A. Games, it has been "regularly revised every four years" through the '12 London Games. The same goes for Wallechinsky's Winter Games-specific history book that last came out before the '14 Sochi Games. He is working now on "producing an online Olympic Encyclopedia that may be part of the IOC website" (L.A. DAILY NEWS, 7/31).
