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Los Angeles to be announced as 2028 Olympics host city

The soon to be confirmed move paves the way for Paris to host the 2024 Games

The Olympic flame burns in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum stadium, venue for the 1984 Summer Olympics, known as the Games of the XXIII Olympiad, during the International Champions Cup 2017 match between Manchester City and Real Madrid last week. Photograph: Getty Images

Mon Jul 31 2017 - 20:34

Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics after reaching a deal with Olympic organisers, a source close to the negotiation said on Monday, a move that paves the way for Paris to host the 2024 Games.

An announcement from the International Olympic Committee was expected later on Monday/early Tuesday morning.

The deal was first reported on by the Los Angeles Times, which cited an unnamed source.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office said he and other backers of the city’s bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games would make an announcement to the news media at 1am (Irish time).

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Asked to comment on the report, a spokeswoman for the Paris 2024 bid said the French city would comment only after official announcements were made.

A formal announcement about which city would host and when had not been expected until September when the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is set to meet in Lima, Peru.

Los Angeles - the site of the Summer Olympics in 1932 and 1984 - had argued that it could host a low-cost Olympics given that it already has all the necessary infrastructure in place, while Paris would need to build several expensive structures.

But recent bids by Paris had been passed over, and many felt the French capital was due to get the nod for the 2024 Games, which will mark 100 years since the last time it hosted a Games.

Los Angeles’ notorious traffic and the impact of President Donald Trump’s ban on travel to the United States from certain Muslim-majority nations had been seen as factors weighing against the West Coast city’s bid.

Garcetti has said that while Los Angeles would prefer to host the Games in 2024, it was not outright opposed to hosting in 2028 instead.

“An Olympic win is an Olympic win,” Garcetti said in May when the city hosted an IOC inspection committee.

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