As with the neatly composed version of Paris 2024 released last week, involving the Eiffel Tower and the figure 24, the immediate reaction to this latest effort at image-incorporation from the “City of Angels” - as it derives from the original Spanish - has been largely positive.

Rightly so. Both logos are artful in the best sense of the word, immediately identifying themselves with their cities - as indeed does the more obvious but still entirely sensible version already launched by Rome 2024 depicting the Colosseum in the green, white and red of the Italian flag.

Viewing the clarity of purpose exhibited by the latest trio, I can’t help but think back to the London 2012 logo - for the Games, not the bid - and rejoice at the way in which elegance has been re-embraced. There is no question of anyone interpreting any of this latest trio as a take on Lisa Simpson engaged in a sex act.

I tried very hard - okay, quite hard - at the time to understand all the variations of purpose there were in London’s jagged, garish emblem. But it still remained for me, and many others, as useless as a multi-purpose tool you can never properly unlock. It was like the proposed re-brand of the radio station in the Alan Partridge film Alpha Papa, from “North Norfolk Digital” to “Shape - the way you want it to be".

Apart from some of the more inane queries raised by the latest unveiling - one Twit, for instance, appeared to be asking what a fairy had to do with Los Angeles (surely that can’t have been for real) - there has been one cogent query, relating to the fact than none of the three logos refers in any specific way to the Paralympics as well as the Olympics. Each merely announces: Candidate City Olympic Games 2024.

Will the fourth and last candidate city to reveal its logo, Budapest, decide there is a trick not to be missed here? We shall see.

For now, though, these symbols of aspiration have taken their place in the sporting world.

“Our logo puts the athlete at the pinnacle of our Olympic celebration,” said LA 2024 vice chair and director of athlete relations, Janet Evans, “which is a reflection of the place of the athlete in our overall plan.

“We wanted an emblem that signalled our dedication to creating the most amazing experience possible for every participant in our Games - and we wanted a slogan that instantly conveyed the distinct advantage of our beautiful, year-round weather and the inviting optimism of our natural environment. And I think we got both.”

The sentiment is lofty, although there is every reason to believe it is sincere - after all, Evans, a native Californian, has been there and done it (and in some cases been done out of it) in a swimming career that earned her four Olympic golds.

The sentiment, indeed, chimes in with one of London 2012 chairman Sebastian Coe’s most visited phrases ahead of the Games for which the Shape logo was designed, that of  “putting the athletes first.”

Now that Coe is grasping the poisoned chalice of the International Association of Athletics Federations Presidency - they do say to be careful what you wish for, Seb - he has the hideous task of trying to remain true to that dictum in an environment festering with corruption and cynicism. From which, wish as he might, he is not himself hermetically sealed.

The comments in The Guardian this week from Britain’s athletics team captain, 400 metre runner Martyn Rooney, are characteristically candid, especially when he talks about the pressing issue or restoring the sport’s integrity. “I was on Talksport  recently and they said: "Well surely everyone’s on drugs."

"No, we’re really not. But that’s the image. So we have to get the faith back in the sport.”

Rooney also speaks of the lessening ability of athletes not necessarily at the very peak of the sport to earn a living from it.

I have been in Stockholm this week covering the Globen Galan meeting - the third in the new IAAF World Indoor Tour series. It is a meeting that has established a proud heritage since its inception in 1990, witnessing 16 world records up to this year’s version. And yet it is also a meeting that is looking urgently for a title sponsor to guarantee that it will still be around this time next year.

Three more world indoor marks - including an annihilation of the 26-year-old mile record by IAAF World Athlete of the Year Genzebe Dibaba, whose time of 4:13.31 was less than a second away from the world outdoor mile record set in 1996 by Russia’s Svetlana Masterkova - were exactly what the organisers would have looked for in a year when two local athletics clubs have held the fort in terms of sponsorship. And the home crowd knew what to expect - Dibaba has broken the 3000m and 5000m world records on the same track on the last two occasions.

Overall, then, it was an engaging and eventful meeting which the final event of the IAAF World Indoor Tour, at Glasgow on Saturday, will do well to top. The atmosphere inside the arena was lively. Many of the most enthusiastic members of the audience were young, and the main event was preceded by almost two hours of competitions involving young athletes.

But as I walked out with one of the event organisers past forklift trucks dismantling the pale blue sections of track at the end of the night, he reflected soberly on the fact that this 10,500 capacity arena had been about half full. Compare that to the numbers over the last five years, from 2011 onwards - 9531, 9136, 9000, 8653, 9186.  It is symptomatic of the challenges the sport is facing worldwide.

The prevailing circumstances do, and will, have economic consequences for those who arrive to run, jump and throw for the paying public. Speaking to some of these young home athletes this week - Sweden’s former world junior champion pole vaulter Angelica Bengtsson, thrilled at how fourth place at last year’s IAAF World Championships has put her truly into the mix in terms of senior events, Khaddi Sagnia, who also signalled her emergence to the senior international ranks aged 21 with her seventh place in the Beijing long jump final last season - you wonder for their future.

Angelic aspirations are fine. But in order for a generation of young athletes not to be betrayed beyond hope, everything possible must be done, and seen to be done, to ensure trust in the sport remains. Because Rooney is right. The majority of those in what remains the cornerstone of the Olympic - and Paralympic - Games deserve that trust.

As EM Forster said - although not on this particular subject - only connect, the prose and the passion…