With one year left until the vote to award the 2024 Summer Olympics, the race is about to enter the limelight.
In the coming days, bid city officials will return from the Paralympics in Rio, where they’ve mostly kept a low profile due to International Olympic Committee rules against campaigning during the current Games. Also, on Oct. 7, attention will return to the technical details of each bid when they submit a second round of documents to the IOC and pay a second $50,000 bid fee installment.
What’s Ahead?
Major milestones in 2024 Olympic race
■ Oct. 7: Bid documents covering “governance, legal and venue funding” due to the IOC; $50,000 bid fee installment also due.
■ Feb. 3, 2017: Final tranche of bid documents due, covering “Games delivery, experience and venue legacy.” Also on this day, bid cities may begin promoting their bid internationally.
■ February-June 2017: IOC evaluation commission to visit bid cities.
■ July 2017: Evaluation Report from the IOC is published. This is the official IOC assessment of the technical strengths and weaknesses of each bid.
■ Sept. 12-17, 2017: The IOC session in Lima, Peru. The agenda is not final, but the bid city vote has been targeted for the 13th.
Before then, however, the field could shrink, instantly reshaping the political calculus heading into next September’s vote in Lima, Peru. Budapest, Los Angeles and Paris are all full steam ahead, but Rome is carefully evaluating its continued participation.
Rome’s local controlling political party, the anti-establishment Five Star Movement, is fiercely opposed to pursuing the Games on economic grounds. Before the Oct. 7 deadline, Italian Olympic Committee President Giovanni Malago is set to meet with Mayor Virginia Raggi. She is skeptical but has not ruled out supporting the bid, and several Italian Olympians made a high-profile plea for her backing last week.
Rome’s departure would leave Los Angeles, Paris and Budapest as the remaining contenders. While Paris and L.A. are considered the favorites, Rome’s departure could consolidate votes in the European-heavy IOC behind Paris or Budapest on the first ballots. A city must win a majority of the roughly 100 votes, with the low voter-getter eliminated in each round.
Each city has a delegation now in Rio for the Paralympics, where they will continue to study Rio’s execution for lessons on their own programs. Rome ’24 is hosting a public meeting to discuss the legacy of the 1960 Rome Olympics, where the Paralympics first debuted.
To mark the year-out date, Paris ’24 will launch a “Tour de France” campaign to nationalize support for the Paris bid, starting Tuesday in Marseille. Bid leaders will further outline their campaign plans then.
From Rio, LA ’24 Chairman Casey Wasserman said the first year of bidding has reinforced his conviction that Los Angeles is the best place for the Games. “Over the next year, we look forward to promoting the ‘new L.A.’ around the world, continuing to listen and learn from the Olympic family and refining our plans to put California’s innovation and creativity at the service of the Olympic movement,” he said.
The Oct. 7 documents also could open up new political fronts in the race. Cities must disclose the legal arrangements, venue funding and governance structure they have in place for the Games if selected, aspects of a bid most likely to trigger local regulatory or political problems. None of the cities currently face a public referendum. Los Angeles has recently touted a poll from 2015 showing 88 percent support for the Games but has not released any further research since then.
