Time for First Impression: LA's Mayor and International Olympic Committee President

On a whirlwind trip to International Olympic headquarters in Switzerland, Mayor Eric Garcetti will meet Thursday with the president of the organization that will decide whether to award Los Angeles the 2024 Games.

The final decision will be made in two years, but the multi-step bidding process calls for an introductory meeting with IOC President Thomas Bach.

"You certainly do want to make a good impression," said Barry Sanders, chairman of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, which developed the original 2024 proposal delivered last year to the Mayor, as well as the plan that led to the 1984 Games.

US Olympic officials had already traveled to Lausanne earlier this year with a delegation from Boston, the USOC's original choice. After Boston withdrew in July, the USOC turned to Los Angeles, officially naming it the bid city on Tuesday.

Within hours, Garcetti and his team and two USOC officials were on a redeye flight to Switzerland.

"Since the time is so compressed, so much has to be done," Sanders said. "There was no time to waste."

The end of the invitation phase of the process — and the deadline for the introductory meeting — is the 15th of this month. Other cities in the running include four in Europe: Budapest, Hamburg, Rome and Paris.

Who's the front-runner?

"When you're at the starting line, it's everybody," said Anita DeFrantz, an Olympic medalist in rowing who has served as president of the LA84 Foundation and who sits on the IOC Executive Committee.

Members whose home countries are bidding are not allowed to vote. Some regard Paris as the favorite. It was expected to win the 2012 games, but lost to London by only four votes, 54-50. It is not an official rule, but the games traditionally move to a different continent every four years, and return to Europe every 12.

During this cycle, the summer games will be in South America (Rio de Janeiro) next year, and Asia (Tokyo) in 2020.

The year 2024 would represent the centennial of the last time Paris hosted the games, the Olympics that inspired the film, "Chariots of Fire."

Sanders praised Bach for instituting reforms intended to reduce the cost and increase the fairness of the selection process, and encourage efficiencies in producing the games themselves.

"A city that can do the games at the least total cost, that's a city that hopes to see favor among voters," said Sanders.

The Los Angeles bid emphasizes that 85 percent of the venues for Olympic events already exist; for most sports there are multiple choices. The venerable LA Coliseum, built for the 1932 games and updated for 1984, would again serve as the focal point, hosting track and field and the opening and closing ceremonies.

The LA24 bid speaks of major improvements being made by the Coliseum's current long term operator, the University of Southern California, though the details remain unclear.

"USC is currently studying potential renovations of the Coliseum but no decisions have yet been made as to the scope and cost of those renovations," said Todd Dickey, senior vice president for administration, in an email.

Most other envisioned 2024 venues have been built since the 1984 games — 80 percent by LA24's calculation. To house the athletes, the 1984 Olympics relied on student housing at UCLA and USC.

The LA24 bid proposes a riverfront Athletes' Village along the banks of the LA River northeast of downtown LA. It is projected to cost $1 billion and be developed with private funds.

The site currently serves as a multimodal transportation yard for Union Pacific Railroad. UP has agreed to consider a sale, but has yet to commit to an agreement or a selling price. Even if the riverfront village does not prove feasible, Sanders said LA24 has other options: another riverfront site under consideration, or student housing at UCLA, which has expanded so much since 1984 that all athletes could be housed in one village — as the IOC prefers.

Sanders also sees a greater receptiveness among IOC members to a US city's bid, in part due to outreach efforts in recent years by the USOC. This includes a commitment to share with other nations more of the revenue from the sale of the American television rights.

When it comes down to the final decision, Sanders believes the IOC is interested not only in a bidding city's qualifications, but also its motivations.

There Sanders sees LA's perhaps strongest selling point: broad public support — 81 percent in an August survey — reflecting an attitude that the Olympics can be a unifying force for a diverse city, as in 1984.

"We need to create that sense of community," said Sanders. "That creates need for the Olympics."

Garcetti and his team, led by sports and entertainment businessman Casey Wasserman, are scheduled to return after the Thursday morning meeting, with two years to hone the LA24 bid.

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