A bid by Los Angeles to host the 2024 Olympic Games could fall victim to anti-American sentiment brewing inside the International Olympic Committee, sources inside the IOC said.
The bid, which is competing against three European cities, risks an anti-US protest vote by several IOC members angry over America’s prominent role in pursuing doping allegations against Russian athletes, the sources said.
The IOC will decide on bids from Los Angeles, Paris, Rome and Budapest in September next year.
At least three non-Russian IOC members, speaking on condition of anonymity, said America’s intervention into allegations of systematic Russian doping had marred the run-up to the Rio Games and tarnished the IOC brand.
“Of course the Los Angeles bid will face some consequences from this,” an IOC member said.
The US Department of Justice is probing allegations of Russian doping on US soil, and the US anti-doping agency (USADA) called for a total ban on Russians in Rio even as US athletes with a history of positive drugs tests competed there, the Huffington Post reports.
