It’s Never Too Early for L.A. to Seek Third Olympics

The small metal and ceramic pin is a collector’s item now, a relic from an Olympic bid that never made it out of the prelims.

Against a burgundy background, gold numbers and letters form a crossword-style logo:

3LA8

2004

That’s L.A. ’32 down, L.A. ’84 down, and L.A. 2004 across.

“It was pretty clever,” John Argue, president of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games (SCCOG), says with a touch of wistful admiration.

“Unfortunately, it won’t work for 2012.”

Los Angeles’ bid to host the 2004 Summer Olympics was derailed in 1990 when Atlanta was awarded the 1996 Games. For another American city to bid for 2000 or 2004--or even 2008--was considered a fool’s mission, knowing how the International Olympic Committee chooses to rotate the sites of these multibillion-dollar festivals.

So with Australia (Sydney) and Europe (Athens) lined up for 2000 and 2004, and Africa, Asia and South America likely to fight it out for 2008, the next open date for a viable U.S. bid is 2012.

Some time this week, before the United States Olympic Committee-imposed deadline of Oct. 20, Argue and the SCCOG will submit a deposit of $150,000 along with a letter of intent to bid on behalf of the city of Los Angeles to host the Summer Games of 2012.

“If it was my decision, I wouldn’t be in the bidding game right now,” says Argue, who helped orchestrate the campaign that garnered the 1984 Games for Los Angeles. “It’s way too early. The Games are in 2012. They award them seven years ahead of that--in 2005. That’s eight years from now.

“In between then, we’re going to have a lot of water go under the bridge. We’re going to have a whole new Olympic Committee by that time. Odds are we’ll have a new president of the IOC. I think it’s safe to say we’ll have a different mayor of Los Angeles, a different city council, different business leaders. It’s early.

“On the other hand, the problem is, the way the USOC has set it up, we have to file an intent-to-bid by Oct. 20 and we have to put up $150,000. Or, under their rules, the way they could be interpreted, we forfeit our right to bid for 2012. . . . We don’t want to take a chance.”

According to Argue, the deposit check will be written by a local business group, the Los Angeles Business Advisors.

“Our proposal is that L.A. host the Olympic Games in 2012 exactly the same way we did them in 1984,” Argue says. “That we have a private organizing committee and that we again go through the same procedures we did the last time to protect the city of Los Angeles from any [financial] liability.

“The city’s got plenty of things on its agenda to take care of other than putting out money for an Olympic Games.”

CROWDED FIELD

A dozen U.S. cities are expected to file letters of intent for the 2012 Games. Already committed: Baltimore, Cincinnati, Houston, New Orleans, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.

Along with Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston and western New York--probably Rochester--are expected to make their candidacies official this week.

By 2000, the USOC will whittle the field to three or four finalists, with the winner to be selected in the spring of 2002, after the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

The U.S. nominee will then compete against another dozen or so international nominees, vying to be awarded the Games by the IOC some time in the summer of 2005.

The playing field has expanded exponentially since the late 1970s, when Los Angeles was the only city to bid for the 1984 Olympics.

“Why?” Argue asks rhetorically.

“Money. There’s already so much money that the organizing committees know they’re going to get. Television money. Sponsorship money. For a place like Los Angeles, that doesn’t have to build anything, [the decision to bid] is not much of a reach.”

Add that to the promotional benefits of hosting the world for two weeks and “showing off your city every day,” Argue says. “There’s scarcely a better way to improve your image than to host the Olympic Games in your city.”

Or tarnish it, if you follow, step-by-step, the Atlanta Guide to Olympic Organization and Hospitality.

Argue: “I was going to say: Unless you have temperatures of 100 degrees and humidity of 100%”

OLYMPICS BEFORE THE NFL?

In a perfect world, the SCCOG would like to present the IOC a bid that includes a spanking new outdoor stadium and basketball arena, but this being Los Angeles, 15 years’ lag time could be pushing it.

“By then,” Argue boldly proclaims, “I guarantee something will be built.”

Just in case, however, the Los Angeles 2012 bid includes a fallback to the Coliseum, which could restore an Olympic-caliber track for about $1 million, and a venue plan calling for events to be held at the Pond in Anaheim and the Pyramid in Long Beach.

“We’re rich in venues,” Argue says. “What other city in the United States has a Rose Bowl and a Coliseum and a Forum and a Sports Arena and a Pond and a new downtown arena and a Pauley Pavilion? That’s an embarrassment of riches.”

Argue is confident Los Angeles will become the USOC’s official nominee for 2012.

“We have a track record, we have an Olympic legacy that goes way back to the 20s,” he says. “We have two residents of the city that are IOC members--one’s an IOC vice president [Anita DeFrantz] and the other is the head of a major federation, archery [James Easton].

“We had two successful Games. . . . We have the facilities, we have the weather, we have the technical people.”

And Los Angeles has something of a favorable forecast from IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch.

According to Argue, Samaranch has told him, on more than one occasion, “I will predict that Los Angeles will hold a third Olympics.”

Samaranch gave no timetable, but Argue jokingly tried to pin him down last summer in Atlanta.

“I told him, ‘We will bid only on one condition,’ ” Argue says. “And he said, ‘Oh, what is your condition?’

“I told him, ‘That you’ll be there.’ ”

Samaranch, who turned 77 this July, smiled as he mulled it over.

“Two-thousand and twelve? I’m not so sure,” Samaranch replied.

Argue: “I’ll settle for if you’ll try.”

Samaranch: “OK. I will try.”