The 2024 Summer Olympics and the 2028 Summer Olympics have been awarded to Paris, France, and Los Angeles, California, respectively, as per the decision from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Wednesday, September 12. This event marked the first in the IOC’s 130-year history that two Olympics were awarded simultaneously. The decision to pick these two cities is significant due to the recent controversies surrounding the IOC. After accusations of corruption and bribery tattered the IOC’s reputation, several countries who previously wanted to make a bid for future Olympics dropped out of the running. This led to the 2022 Olympics Winter Games being awarded to Beijing, China, which many people are unhappy about, including several Lynbrook High School students. “I think it’s ridiculous that the Winter Olympics are being held in China!” barked freshman Daniel Kessler. “Does it even snow there?” Junior Leo Glassmen commented, “I just don’t get it. I mean, come on, seriously? That’s such a bad idea,” he sighed, pausing for a second. “Who wants to go the China during the winter?” added Glassman.

One of the biggest factors of being a home city for the Olympics is the construction of facilities for the games. Because the Olympics encompasses so many events, host nations need to spend billions of dollars to build beautiful stadiums to host the events. And once the Games are over, the stadiums are often abandoned and are left to ruin. Take, for example, the 2008 Summer Olympic Games located in Beijing, China. One of the many facilities built for the 2008 Games was the Bird’s Nest, a building exquisitely designed solely for the Olympics that cost millions of dollars to construct. However, once the Games ended, the stadium was never used again, and is now falling apart. For Beijing to reuse the Bird’s Nest for the 2022 Games, they would have to either spend a fortune fixing and renovating the stadium, or they would have to destroy the stadium entirely and start from scratch.

The benefit of having host cities such as Paris and Los Angeles, is that they already have most of the facilities built due to the regular events that occur in those cities. According to the Los Angeles Times article, “L.A.’s Game Plan for 2024 Olympics Wins Praise from Foreign Media” (latimes.com), “LA 2024 has proposed spending $5.3 billion, a relatively modest amount by modern Olympic standards. Athletes would be housed at UCLA, saving $1 billion or more on a new village. France has also presented a trim budget but would receive government funding and would have to build an athlete village at Saint Denis.” “It’s great how much money Paris and L.A. will save from not having to build new facilities,” commented junior E.J. Weisz. “Hopefully the money saved will go to good use,” added Weisz.