THE COMPETITION FOR THE COMPETITION

AT THE CLOSING CEREMONY OF THE 2018 SUMMER OLYMPICS in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil the organizers of the upcoming 2020 Tokyo Games were able to start the hype about their big upcoming event.  If you were wondering which location is next after Japan to have the honor of hosting the Games like I was, the answer is that it has not yet been decided! Los Angeles is making another bid and trying to bring the event back to the USA. There’s a lot more about the process of successfully winning a bid and how LA is hoping to win that competition in the LA Times article, “Behind the Scenes LA 2024 Consultants Work to Push the Bid” by David Wharton.
 
The future US Olympic Track and Field Team members for that great event might still be in college, high school, or even elementary school now. What an incentive running on ‘home’ turf would be to train hard for those Games. At least for marathoners there would be the added excitement of potentially finishing the iconic race in the famous LA Memorial Coliseum, the home of the 1932 and 1984 Summer Olympics.
 
The first Games in which a women’s marathon competition was run was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympiad, won by American Joan Benoit (now Samuelson).  An American did not win the men’s marathon that year, but with the recent terrific showing of both the men (Galen Rupp won a bronze medal and Justin Ward finished 6th) and women (Shalane Flanagan, Desiree Linden, and Amy Cragg finished, 6th, 7th and 9th respectively) in this past Olympics, surely there would be enough excitement to inspire TEAM USA between now and 2024 to make history there. Regardless it would not be too far to travel for me; I would plan to go, especially having lived in LA.
 
RUN HAPPY!
 
http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/the-first-womens-olympic-marathon
 
http://www.latimes.com/sports/olympics/la-sp-oly-la2024-presentation-20160820-snap-story.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/trackandfield/index.ssf/2016/08/rio_olympics_galen_rupp_bounce.html

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/14/usa-shalane-flanagan-des-linden-amy-cragg-olympic-womens-marathon/88718548/