Los Angeles is one of seven cities - along with Boston, Dallas, Philadelphia, San Diego, San Francisco and Washington DC - currently lobbying the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) to be put forward as the American candidate for 2024 as the country seeks to host the Summer Games for the first time since Atlanta 1996. 

Under the proposals published today by Los Angeles there would be three main clusters with, at its heart, a primary cluster based in downtown LA containing 12 venues, hosting 19 sports, and potentially the Olympic Village and the International Broadcast Centre.

The main stadium would again be the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the centrepiece of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics.

The revitalised LA River forms the "spine" of the plan, officials from the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games (SCCOG) claim, with one of the two locations for the Olympic Village close to the river with the other downtown. 

Officials also claim that 80 per cent of spectators will be connected to venues by public transport, even though they admit in their document that it is an "urban expanse suited to the automobile".

A revamped Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum would host the Olympics for the third time in its history if the city's bid for 2024 is successful ©SCCOG

"The abundance of other existing venues and iconic sites, and the possibilities of exciting temporary venues, give us the opportunity to go beyond this offering and craft the perfect bid out of numerous permutations of the different existing and planned facilities," claim officials from Los Angeles 2024, who also revealed an a deckchair-style logo.

"We can emphasize proximity, excitement, audience size, television, or whatever criteria...is essential to winning the bid and hosting extraordinary Games.

"In winning the right to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games we will be able to enhance the Olympic Movement and contribute to the ongoing transformation of LA."

The proposed Olympic Park would be the Exposition Park in the south of the city in a rectangle bounded by Exposition Boulevard to the north, South Figueroa Street to the east, Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard to the south and Menlo Avenue to the west.

It is directly south of the main campus of the University of Southern California and includes the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena, Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and the California Science Centre. 

It also includes the LA84 Foundation/John C. Argue Swim Stadium, originally constructed for the 1932 Olympics and which would be a venue for water polo in 2024. 

The centrepiece will be the renovation of the Memorial Coliseum into an 80,000-capacity "world-class athletics facility", while a proposed 20,000-seat soccer stadium would host most of the aquatics events. 

LA Live, a world-class sports and entertainment destination in downtown LA, including the Staples
Center, would also host several events, including gymnastics and handball, and the Nokia Theatre, a venue for fencing. 

Other established LA venues that would be utillised include the Walt Disney Concert Hall, the iconic concert venue designed by Frank Gehry which would be home to taekwondo, and the Griffith Observatory. which sits on the south-facing slope of Mount Hollywood and would host some cycling events.

Beach volleyball would be held on Santa Monica - where the sport was born in 1922 - and the marathon route would include Rodeo Drive and sailing would take place in the Long Beach Marina, home of the Queen Mary.

Los Angeles has promise to use well known sites to host events if they host the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics ©SCCOG

Californian officials claimed that, although it would be only the second city after London to host the Olympics three times if it was successful, the Games would be like no other.

"To develop this comprehensive plan for LA to host the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games tapped into the deep well of Los Angeles' creativity," they claim in their bid document. 

"Today's LA is home to a reclaimed downtown 'heart' pulsing with residents, sports and recreation; restaurants, art and culture; to a river being restored; to a vast new metro rail and bus network; to an airport transforming from functional to hypermodern; and to a sparkling beach community commingling artists and high tech entrepreneurs.

"Olympians in unmatched numbers call LA home.

"We want the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games to call LA home, too.

"How to capture the essence of LA?

"It is not bricks and mortar.

"It is a city in constant ferment and reinvention."

Several events, including the cycling, would take place with some Los Angeles' iconic landmarks as a backdrop ©SCCOG

Los Angeles officials are pinning their hopes on the city's glamarous reputation persuading the USOC to choose them when they select a city to bid, which they are expected to do later this year.

"It is forever new, forever exciting, and forever glamorous - always embracing innovation, technology, creativity, and growth," they say in their document.

"More than 200 languages are spoken and every community is present.

"People are born here and more people arrive, émigrés and immigrants, all imbued with optimism and knowing that anything is possible.

"It is a city of dreams and dreamers.

"LA presents to the USOC a canvas upon which to paint a custom-made, collaborative and winning American bid."

Contact the writer of this story at [email protected]


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