KEIR RADNEDGE REPORTS: The general movement has not changed: speculation that the International Olympic Committee is heading towards a 2024/2028 award for Paris and Los Angeles continues to move forward.

At the end of next week IOC president Thomas Bach will deliver the verdict of the ‘four wise men’ and his executive board about what happens next in real, practical terms.

The tricky issues are clear: the one is to strike a deal with Los Angeles which  Mayor Eric Garcetti can present as a victory; the other is to find a formula which assuages concerns among some IOC members that they will have a valuable vote to undertake in Lima on September 13.

Bach has denied suggestions arising from Garcetti himself and from a report in the Wall Street Journal that a deal is close to being agreed. But then, he would. It would be a major political and diplomatic gaffe if the IOC itself felt it had been too obviously rendered redundant in the process by its president.

Garcetti’s dream

The specific Garcetti comment which pushed the dual award agenda forward was in telling a press conference: “My dream is not so much to bring the Games here but to bring the sport for young people free in all parts of the city. ”

Bach sought to rein in the horses during a visit the World Table Tennis Championships in Düsseldorf. He said: “”We will address this issue (the double vote), first of all, with the executive board. Then, if we come to the conclusion that a double allocation should be taken into consideration, we will discuss it with the IOC members.

“There has to be a vote.”

Vote for what? Possibly to accept or reject an exbo proposal for a double award. After all, there may be objections. Budapest might wantto run ‘properly’ for 2028. Moscow has been mentioned. One day Doha will come back into the reckoning.

A double award would mean the present generation of sports business leaders writing themselves out of the Olympic bidding process. That is a lot of jobs.

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