Recent losers have reacted in different ways to the devastation of defeat in Olympic host-city contests.

South Korea kept plugging away, burnishing strengths, eliminating weaknesses, until finally, in Pyeongchang 2018, they pieced together a bullet-proof proposition.

Brazil made winning an absolute national priority.

Japan applied themselves with the indefatigable diligence that is part of their modern-day national stereotype to achieving fluency in the highly idiomatic language of the Olympic court.

The United States first tried throwing their weight around.

That led to the Calamity of Copenhagen when Chicago was eliminated in the first round of voting for the 2016 Summer Games host.

Now they have come up with a much more promising mix, combining humility, pragmatism and, yes, financial muscle - as illustrated by this month's jaw-dropping $7.65 billion (£4.51 billion/€5.49 billion) rights deal between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and NBCUniversal (NBCU).

Pyeongchang were awarded the 2018 Winter Olympics and Paralympics after two failed bids ©Getty Images

And then there is France.

France went into shock, seemingly traumatised by a defeat that the political classes, and many others besides, did not see coming.

They allowed themselves to drift into a low-octane Winter Olympic bid that scarcely anyone outside the old Duchy of Savoy appeared to believe in.

Now, finally, they are starting to snap out of it.

Next week, the country's attempt to construct a winnable Summer Olympic and Paralympic bid is expected to get under way in earnest with the launch of a number of working groups, combining people from inside and outside sport, who will attempt to chisel out a plan that everyone feels they can buy into.

The methodical nature of this approach suggests that the country which spawned modern Olympism has accepted the wisdom of former IOC member Jean-Claude Killy's recent advice that "the romantic IOC no longer exists".

In other words, Paris would have no chance if it pitched up at the start-line of the race to host the 2024 Games simply assuming it would win because that date marks the centenary of the last Paris Summer Olympics.

Atlanta were chosen to host the Centenary Olympics in 1996, not Athens ©Getty Images

As Killy also pointed out, the 1996 Centenary Games were staged in Atlanta, not Athens.

There is no reason to doubt the capacity of some of the best minds in this country with its unique cultural sophistication and flair, its often underestimated organisational prowess and, yes, its special status in modern Olympic history to devise a project that is capable of winning.

But I wonder to what extent strategy might be influenced by the scars left on the political classes by France's long losing streak.

The "grande école" types who largely form the country's governing elite tend not to "get" sport.

They didn't get where they are today by not excelling and they may feel simply unable to stomach another loss.

No matter how good the project they come up with, France's sporting leaders might therefore find themselves expected to answer an impossible question as the price of securing full-blooded political backing: not, "Can we win with this bid?" but "Will we win?"

It would be foolhardy at the best of times to answer this in the affirmative.

Given that the 2024 race looks increasingly likely to feature the best US bid for a long, long time, it is hard to see how Paris, or anyone else, could enter the contest as anything better than second favourite.

Until recently, I had thought that, while the US would win one of the next two Summer Olympics and Paralympics, this was more likely to be in 2028 than in 2024.

This was because of the time it usually takes, even once your mindset is right, to make a bid pitch-perfect; that and one or two more technical things such as financial guarantees.

Under those circumstances, you would probably argue that the best tactic for European cities would be to challenge the chosen US candidate hard for 2024 because otherwise you might live to regret it - particularly if you sat it out and found yourself watching impotently while a more courageous European rival won.

America's last bid to host the Olympics ended in disaster for Chicago 2016 when they were eliminated in the first round of voting despite the presence of President Barack Obama and the First Lady Michelle at the IOC Session in Copenhagen ©Getty Images

However, the stubbornly persistent mood of anti-Americanism that has lurked inside the IOC in recent times seems now to be dissipating in this rather trickier business climate for mega-event owners - a process that the landmark NBCU broadcasting deal may well accelerate.

As a result, I have changed my mind: I now expect the US candidate to take all the beating in 2024.

Normally, you might still see considerable virtue in Paris launching a speculative 2024 bid: its new team - including recently-elected Paris mayor, Anne Hidalgo (who I notice, promisingly enough, wrote a preface to the last sports book I read) - would learn, or re-learn, the bidding ropes; plus, if the project were good, it would leave a positive legacy for city and country, win or lose.

The French capital would then go hell for leather for 2028, when Europe should be in the box-seat, albeit under challenge, perhaps, from the Gulf and Africa, whose candidate-cities might possibly benefit from changes to the bidding rules that the IOC is currently mulling over.

In the real world though, if the US still looks this powerful this time next year, bearing in mind that cities will need to declare their interest by September 2015, I would not be at all surprised if the French decided to keep their up to €80 million (£65 million/$109 million) in their pocket and their powder dry.

As well as reluctance to countenance another losing campaign, the fact that the next French Presidential election is due in April and May 2017, just as the 2024 race will be entering its critical final stages, might lead political sages to conclude that, on this occasion, discretion was the better part of valour.

There is also talk of an Expo 2025 bid, which might need to be lodged in 2016, but which might equally stimulate development of infrastructural assets, such as hotels, that could dovetail well with a 2028 Olympic bid.

A French city has not hosted the Olympics since Albertville staged the Winter Games in 1992 ©Sports Illustrated/Getty Images

I do think a decision not to enter the 2024 race would be a pity: as I wrote last year, the modern Olympic Movement seems to be getting altogether too remote from its Francophone roots, with no Summer Olympics going to a largely French-speaking city since 1976, and no French Winter Games since Albertville 1992.

The way things are shaping up, though, I think the best that French sports leaders can hope for after results of the feasibility study are announced in the autumn is a decision that Paris will bid, without stipulating whether this means in 2024 or 2028.

This would enable planners to start getting their ducks in a row such that, should the fickle currents of Olympic popularity start to flow in Paris's favour between late 2014 and September 2015, they would be in position to take advantage.

Failing that, my present sense is that the capital of chic might leave it to others - Rome, perhaps; St Petersburg conceivably - to try to halt the US juggernaut in 2024, in the hope that it could then sashay away with sport's biggest prize in 2028.

David Owen worked for 20 years for the Financial Times in the United States, Canada, France and the UK. He ended his FT career as sports editor after the 2006 World Cup and is now freelancing, including covering the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the 2010 World Cup and London 2012. Owen's Twitter feed can be accessed here.