Los angeles eyes up olympic hosting hat trick

Los Angeles is eyeing up a potential hat trick for hosting the Olympics, as the city joins the contenders for the 2024 Games.

Budapest, Hamburg, Los Angeles, Paris, and Rome will compete to host the sporting tournament in nine years' time, after all submitted their applications to the IOC by the midnight deadline earlier this week.

The IOC will contribute USD 1.7 billion in cash and services to the organising committee for the Olympic Games 2024.

"We are welcoming five outstanding and highly qualified Candidate Cities," said IOC President Thomas Bach. "Olympic Agenda 2020 has shaped the Candidature Process more as an invitation and the cities have responded by engaging with the IOC through dialogue and cooperation. In the new invitation process the IOC learnt that all the candidates are embracing Olympic Agenda 2020 from their respective vision for the future of their city. Sustainability and legacy are the cornerstones of each candidature."

The announcement of the five competing cities placed a strong emphasis on the transparency of the process. Indeed, the Olympic candidacy contest unfolds in the shadow of a major corruption scandal that has engulfed FIFA, with 14 officials arrested in May this year in an investigation examining the decisions made to allocate the hosting of the football event to Russia and Qatar.

In keeping with its commitment to good governance, transparency and ethics, following the recently introduced Olympic Agenda 2020, the IOC published all the documents related to the Candidature, the first time that the full package of documentation has been made public at the very outset of the process.

With their applications, the cities also have to follow the strict Rules of Conduct for Candidate Cities, which regulate all forms of communication between the Candidate Cities, IOC Members and other Olympic Movement stakeholders, including visits.

The rules were also changed last month to ensure that each city bidding would progress to the final voting stage. Los Angeles' campaign promises to "put on a show that only LA can do", Paris is proposing to use landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Versailles to host events, Rome has highlighted its history with 1960's Stadio Olimpico, Budapest has a strong back catalogue of world championships now under its belt, while Hamburg is set to hold a referendum in November to decide whether the city actually wants to host the Olympics.