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L.A. 2016 Games – Compact And Ready

Los Angeles 2016 officials said Friday that the city is already equipped to stage the 2016 Summer Games with only one venue needed to be built, and a more compact area than during the Los Angeles 1984 Olympic Games.

Barry Sanders, chairman of the Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games said, “we can stage these Games with almost no construction of permanent facilities. We can turn our attention to building human spirit, building human achievement and joy—fundamental Olympic visions”.

Sanders said the only new venue to be built would be for shooting at the country fairgrounds in suburban Pomona. A refurbished Los Angeles Coliseum near the downtown area would be used for the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, and for track and field.

Residence halls at UCLA would house the Athlete’s Village, while the media and Olympic family would stay at residence halls on the University of Southern California campus.

Gymnastics would be at the Staples Center, swimming in a temporary pool built on the same Long Beach parking lot where the 2004 U.S. Olympic trials were held, and diving would take place at an indoor pool in Long Beach.

Basketball would be played at Honda Center in Anaheim, home of the NHL’s Anaheim Ducks.

Other venues include the Galen Center, USC’s basketball area; Home Depot Center in suburban Carson; and the Pyramid arena on the Long Beach State campus.

Preliminary soccer would be played in San Diego and San Francisco.

On Monday Los Angeles and its rival Chicago will submit their bid books and five weeks after that a USOC evaluation team will conduct two-day technical evaluations in each city.

The USOC evaluation team will present its findings to its board of directors on April 14, the two bid cities will make their final presentations, and the candidate city will be chosen. Submissions will be made to the International Olympic Committee on September 15 and the 2016 Summer Olympic Games host city will be chosen in 2009.

Referring to Chicago, Los Angeles’ competitor for the USOC candidacy, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said, “we don’t want to compare to any other city. We just want to extol the virtues (of Los Angeles)”.

Earlier the Mayor told a rally of supporters, “we’re here as one team – the city, the county and the state. We’ve got the beaches, the glitz and the glamour, and now we even have David Beckham”.

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