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San Diego and Tijuana Bid to Co-Host Olympics

San Diego and Tijuana Bid to Co-Host Olympics

 

San Diego’s plans to host the 2024 Summer Olympics in a joint bid with Tijuana made it to a list of 10 U.S. cities currently under consideration to be hosts, according to U.S. Olympic Committee Chief Executive Scott Blackmun and San Diego Mayor Bob Filner. 

Blackmun confirmed in a statement last Friday that the San Diego-Tijuana proposal is on a short list that also includes Los Angeles and Philadelphia.

Filner first announced his plans to create a binational proposal for the Olympics in February after the USOC invited San Diego and 32 other cities to bid for the opportunity to host.

Filner, a Democrat, hopes that former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney will lead the two cities’ campaign and believes that his presence would add validity to the proposal.

“I’d like [Romney] to be the honorary chair of this whole effort,” Filner said, according to an April 27 story that appeared in the U-T San Diego.

In addition to owning a house in La Jolla, Romney served as president of the Salt Lake City Organizing Committee for the Olympic and Paralympic Games that hosted the Winter Olympics in Utah in 2002.

Romney has yet to respond publicly to Filner’s request.

A previous effort to hold a binational Olympic Games between San Diego and Tijuana was first considered by local real estate developer Malin Burnham in 2006. Burnham’s committee found the idea financially sound, but USOC ultimately shot down the proposal in the first round of consideration.

Filner also said that the cities of San Diego and Tijuana would release a joint statement in the next 10 days as they prepare their Olympic committees. If Filner’s proposal succeeds, the event will become the first binational Olympic Games.

The International Olympic Committee will select a host city for the 2024 Olympic Games in 2017.

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