Brace yourself for the gridlock on the roads, because the world's biggest athletic competition is going Hollywood.
As per TMZ, earlier today (September 13th), the International Olympic Committee (IOC) officially announced that the city of Los Angeles will be getting the 2028 Olympic Games. It was a bid long rumored to be going through, but things were only set in stone today. Paris, France will be getting the 2024 Summer Games.
Many high-profile names were part of the team that helped turn this dream into a reality, including hip-hop legend Dr. Dre. Magic Johnson, the Disney corporation, Warner Brothers Entertainment and the heads of Los Angeles' major sports teams such as the Clippers, Lakers, Dodgers and Rams were also part of the group that supported the Olympic bid. "This is a win-win-win situation for Paris, Los Angeles and the entire Olympic movement,” IOC President Thomas Bach said, trumpeting the arrival of the long-standing event to two cities that have craved hosting duties for some time now.
The last time Los Angeles hosted an Olympic Games was in 1984, beginning on July 28th and ending on August 12th. For Paris, it has been an even longer wait, having not hosted a Games since 1924 and seemingly snake-bitten by the process after losing out on their bid to host the 2012 game to London. Paris will also become the second city to host three separate Olympic Games, while Los Angeles will become the third four years after. The last time the Olympics came to the United States was in 1996, when Atlanta was the host city. As per Fox News in Denver, many competing cities who were initially interested in bids as well ended up bowing out over the course of the process, citing concerns about the massive undertaking in terms of cost and the resulting strain of overwhelming debt it would put on a given city and its taxpayers. As an example, Oxford’s Said Business School estimated the cost overrun for the 2016 Summer Olympics, which went down in Rio de Janeiro, was around $1.6 billion. Let's hope Paris and Los Angeles don't have similar issues bringing their Games to the world stage.