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maltatoday SUNDAY, 11 JUNE 2017 Sport 54 OLYMPICS ATHLETICS IOC to award 2024 and 2028 games at same time The International Olympic Committee's (IOC) executive board has unanimously backed a recommendation to award the 2024 and 2028 Games at the same time THE recommendation, which was widely ex- pected, was made by the IOC's four vice-pres- idents and will now be voted on by the IOC's 94-strong membership at an "extraordinary" session in Lausanne on July 11-12. After several candidates dropped out be- cause of fears over cost and legacy benefits, only Los Angeles and Paris remain in the race for the 2024 Games and the IOC is desperate to avoid either side from walking away empty- handed. This has prompted IOC president Thomas Bach to come up with the idea of a dual award, namely giving 2024 to one of the two cities and 2028 to the other. Paris is believed to be the hot favourite to go first, as 2024 will mark the centenary of the second time it held the Games, with Los An- geles agreeing to wait 11 years for its third shot at staging sport's largest event. As well as the French capital's sentimental reason for only wanting the 2024 Games, the bidding committee has also said it must be that year for logistic reasons as the land it has earmarked for the Olympic Village will not be available four years later. LA, however, can wait, as its venues are ei- ther already built or in the process of being constructed. Speaking to reporters in Lausanne, Bach said "talks not negotiations" are under way with the two cities but would not be drawn on sugges- tions the American city might get "a financial award" for going second. When asked if this dual award was fair on cities considering bids for 2028, Bach said: "In German, we say it is better to have a small bird in your hand than a big bird on the roof. "Now, we have two big birds in our hand but I can't see any birds on the roof. They might be flying over it but they haven't landed." There were also questions about what this decision, if it is approved at the extraordinary meeting in July, would mean for the scheduled IOC gathering in Lima in September, when the 2024 host was supposed to be revealed. Bach said that was still uncertain and the four vice-presidents have been asked to con- tinue looking at the "technical issues" related to the idea, which is unprecedented in IOC history. FIFA, of course, has tried this before in 2010, when it gave the 2018 World Cup to Russia and 2022 edition to Qatar. Those decisions, how- ever, have had severe consequences for most of the men who made them, a fate Bach and his colleagues will be very eager to avoid. The Paris 2024 bidding committee issued a statement soon after the IOC announcement to say it "welcomes" the decision, which it be- lieves is in "the best interests of the Olympic movement". "Paris 2024 remains totally focused on pre- paring its presentation to the Lausanne meet- ing where we will have an opportunity to pre- sent to all the IOC members our proposal for centenary Games of passion and purpose," it added. While the 2024/2028 situation was the key item on the executive board's agenda on Fri- day, it also approved a raft of changes to the schedule for Tokyo 2020, with 16 new events coming in and one dropped. Most of these new events will be for women or mixed teams and will mean there are al- most equal numbers of male and female ath- letes at Tokyo 2020. But these new events, coupled with the five new sports announced last year, mean some sports have had their athlete quotas dramati- cally reduced. One of these is weightlifting, which as well as being the only sport to see its total number of events reduced by one, must also make do with 64 fewer athletes - an obvious punish- ment for the sport's terrible doping record. Bach said all 28 of the sports featured at Rio have been approved for the 2024 programme with "two caveats". The first, continuing compliance with the IOC Charter and World Anti-Doping Agency Code, applies to all 28 sports but the second is specifically for weightlifting. Bach said the International Weightlifting Federation had until December "to deliver a satisfactory report to the IOC on how it will address the massive doping problem this sport is facing". The former Olympic fencing champion said the IOC had already sent a "strong signal" to the sport by docking one of its events and cut- ting 64 athletes. Only athletics saw its quota cut more drasti- cally, losing 105 athletes, and it is interesting these two sports combine for 95 of the 111 pos- itive tests from the IOC's reanalysis of samples stored from the 2008 and 2012 Games. In a joint statement, Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and LA 2024 bid chairman Casey Wasserman echoed the "welcome" from Paris for the IOC executive board's recognition of "two excellent bids from two of the world's greatest cities". They added: "With no new permanent ven- ues to build and unwavering public support, Los Angeles is an eternal Olympic city and ideal partner for the IOC." Bolt will miss the crowds as he considers helping others AS Usain Bolt prepares to run his last com- petitive Jamaican race on Saturday, the world's fastest man is already thinking about his fu- ture. Charity work and assisting coach Glen Mills with his track club appear at the top of the list for Bolt, who will retire after August's world championships in London. "I promised him (Mills) that I will try to be a part of Racers Track Club as much as possible," Bolt told Reuters. "He wants me to take over but I don't thing that will happen, but I will definitely try to as- sist as much as possible because I love Racers and I love my coach very much." Multiple Olympic and world gold medallist Bolt, who seems to have moved past his ear- lier desire to play professional soccer, said he would miss competing, but not the hard train- ing. "I'm going to miss the crowds," the 30-year- old said. "I enjoy just playing with the crowd, feeling the energy and just competing in front of them... that's what I'm going to miss about track and field." Politics are also out of the question, the 100 and 200 metres world record holder said. Even with Jamaican Prime Minister Andrew Holness offering opportunities in government, the lanky sprinter has said no. "I've said it over the years, politics is not me," Bolt said. "When your guys (journalists) ask me questions, I've always tried to stay away from politics because it's a tricky thing, so I try to stay as far away as possible." But Bolt, who considers Jamaican sprint icons the late Herb McKenley and Don Quar- rie, both Olympic gold medallists, among his role models, wants to put on a show in his last run on home soil, a 100 metres at the National Stadium. "The fans in Jamaica know that when I show up I always show up at my best," the 11-time world champion said. "I always try to make sure they're happy be- cause they're very hard to please," added the man who clocked 50 sub-10 second 100 metres in his career. Although he harbours no intentions of at- tempting his 100m world record of 9.58 sec- onds, Bolt aims to go out in the blaze of glory in London. "I'm the world record holder so there's no reason to want to break the world record," he said. "For me this season is just about trying to win and continue winning and end my career on a winning note."