LA 2024 will send a delegation of 16 people to 2016 Paralympics in Rio

LA 2024 will send a 16-person delegation to the 2016 Paralympics in Rio de Janeiro as part of its ongoing campaign to bring the Olympics back to Southern California.

The private bid committee – which had a larger group in Brazil for the recent Summer Games – will be represented by Chairman Casey Wasserman and Chief Executive Gene Sykes, among others.

“The Rio 2016 Olympic Games provided LA 2024 with many lessons, and we are already hard at work, finding ways to build on the best of Rio to create a new Games for a new era,” Sykes said in a statement. “We expect the Paralympic Games to be yet another fantastic opportunity for our team to listen and learn.”

The Paralympics have been hit by financial difficulties even greater than those that forced significant cutbacks at the Summer Games. The International Paralympic Committee also has banned the entire Russian team over doping concerns.

That puts the IPC at odds with the International Olympic Committee, which decided to admit or exclude Russian athletes on a case-by-case basis. IOC President Thomas Bach will not be in Rio for any part of the Paralympics, according to a report from aroundtherings.com.

The competition begins Wednesday, continuing through Sept. 18.