U.S. President Donald Trump has “done everything” to support the Los Angeles bid to host the 2024 Olympic Games, bid chief Casey Wasserman told reporters, including holding a lengthy phone call with Olympic chief Thomas Bach.
Trump, the New York-based tycoon and former celebrity reality show host-turned politician, has been all the West Coast city could hope for, Wasserman said.
“Donald Trump has done everything we could have asked to support our bid,” entertainment executive Wasserman told a small group of reporters at his seventh-floor offices in central London.
“Every letter, every phone call … to President Bach… support of our bid generally … in my role, from what we need from the federal government, he’s been all I would hope for.”
Wasserman did not reveal the details of Trump’s call to Bach, only to say it had lasted a good while.
“They didn’t ask me to sit in on those phone calls,” he smiled.
“That was a private call between those two which went on for 25 minutes. Just one call.”
The U.S. city is vying with French capital Paris for the right to stage the 2024 Games.
The process has been muddied recently by the creation of an IOC working group, to study the possibility of making a double award for two editions.
Paris and Los Angeles are the only remaining cities left in the race to secure the 2024 Games after a number of withdrawals from the process, including Boston, Hamburg, Rome and, most recently, Budapest.
Both Los Angeles and Paris have said they see the merits of a joint-award to provide a period of stability to the hosting of the Games, but neither city is prepared to wait until 2028 for its turn.
The IOC is scheduled to meet in Lima, Peru, on Sept. 13 to choose the host city.
The IOC has not said when it will announce its decision on the potential double award, but the working group is due to report to the IOC at its executive board meeting in Lausanne in July.
This will be a few days before the 2024 bidders would make their last pitch to IOC members prior to that September vote in Peru. (Reuters/NAN)
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