L.A. deserves the Olympics

TODAY, the U.S. Olympic Committee selects a city to nominate as host for the 2016 Summer Games. The two finalists have much to recommend them: international stature, community support, committed leadership. The winner will then go before the International Olympic Committee, which is scheduled to select a host city in October 2009. As we said, they’re both fine cities … which ones were they again?

We jest. The committee will be choosing between bids from Chicago and Los Angeles. It will come as no surprise that we’re rooting for L.A. But not just because we’re the hometown newspaper. Chicago, we acknowledge, has something we don’t (and no, we’re not referring to humidity or lightning storms — although if we were, we’d be correct). Yet we have everything Chicago does — and better weather too.

L.A.’s perfect weather is not the reason to give L.A. the Olympics, any more than Chicago’s less-than-perfect weather is a reason to deny it the Games. L.A.’s bid is better for more tangible reasons: We already have world-class coliseums and arenas suitable for international competition. We have been host to two previous Summer Olympics, in 1932 and 1984, and both were unqualified successes. And we would spend no public money for the Games.

But let’s forget about all that for now. It’s who we are, not what we have, that makes L.A.’s bid unbeatable.

We are the world’s laboratory for diversity; we come from 140 countries and speak 224 languages. Our ethnic diversity is matched by our religious variety, with Los Angeles home to 100 denominations of Christianity, to Buddhists, Jews, Hindus, Muslims, Scientologists, neo-pagans and a few others that defy categorization. We are one of the world’s great centers of art, culture and beauty.

Let’s be blunt: NBC is shelling out $5.7 billion for 12 years of U.S. broadcast rights and, frankly, we are more photogenic than Chicago.

Barry A. Sanders, chairman of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, is unabashedly proud of Los Angeles — and not for superficial reasons. He sees a community that handles its diversity with a minimum of strife and a maximum of grace — just what the rest of the world needs to see. That’s the real gift Angelenos have to offer: the ability to embody the Olympic spirit in the most quotidian routines.

Yes, Chicago has a lot going for it — beautiful architecture, vibrant culture, wealthy investors interested in newspapers. It is imbued with Midwestern manners and class. Which is why, no matter which city the U.S. Olympic Committee selects today, Chicago can be counted on to be gracious. Especially if, as we hope and expect, L.A. wins.