2016, ready or not
When we want our updates on the status of L.A.'s bid for the 2016 Summer Games, we now know where to look.
The Chicago Tribune.
Staff writer Phil Hersh had a piece the other day that put far more detail into what was going into L.A.'s bid as it competes first against Chicago and San Francisco to see who gets the USOC's stamp of approval next year to represent our country's nod before it goes up against other nations in the IOC's final decision.
Seems there's a guy named Barry Sanders who chairs the Southern California bid and has nothing to do with the Detroit Lions or the Pro Football Hall of Fame and knows everything about everything here.
"This will be a new Olympics," Sanders said of L.A.'s 2016 bid. "At least 70 percent of the sports will take place in different facilities from 1984."
From this story, L.A. will:
-- Plan to use the Coliseum as the focal point -- putting a track back in -- as it was for the 1932 and 1984 Games.
-- Have just one main Olympic Village, either at USC or UCLA.
-- Hold soccer prelims all around the area, but that's the only sport that goes outside of L.A. or Orange county.
-- Rowing and canoe-kayak goes to Long Beach instead of Lake Casitas.
-- Swimming would be at a temporary pool built in Long Beach, just as they used for the recent US Olympic trials.
-- Diving would be at a new facility at UCLA.
-- Staples Center would hold gymnastics.
--The new Nokia Theatre (being built across the street from Staples Center now) would hold weightlifting.
--The soon-to-be renamed Arrowhead Pond in Anaheim would hold basketball.
--The new Galen Center near USC would hold boxing.
--The Home Depot Center in Carson has tennis and a velodrome, plus could do soccer.
And all this, according to Sanders, can be finished with $150 million in costs.
Beat that, Chi-Town.