San Francisco carries torch for 2024 Olympics

San Francisco business and city leaders are mulling a proposal to bring the Olympic and Paralympic Games to San Francisco in 2024. San Francisco is one of four finalist cities considered for a U.S. bid to host the games.

The U.S. Olympic Committee will decide whether to submit San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston or Washington, D.C., as a possible site for the Olympics after the International Olympic Committee meets in December, according to a group in charge of developing San Francisco’s proposal.

The group, headed by San Francisco Giants president and CEO Larry Baer, former U.S. Olympic gold medalist Anne Warner Cribbs and entrepreneur Steve Strandberg, is working on a logistical plan for hosting the games, including necessary infrastructure improvements.

San Francisco’s bid is bolstered by recent and planned construction of new sports venues throughout the area, including the newly opened Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, new facilities at University of California at Berkeley and Stanford University and planned new stadiums for the Golden State Warriors and San Jose Earthquakes, organizers said.

The International Olympic Committee will decide on the 2024 site in 2017.

Baer said in a statement:

“We believe a San Francisco Bay Area Olympic and Paralympic Games would be an enormous success, and would benefit the region, the nation and the Games themselves, well beyond 2024.”

Among the potential benefits, organizers say the Olympics would bring lasting infrastructure improvements and jobs in constructing those improvements.

Strandberg said:

“Hosting the Games would galvanize the Bay Area around some of our most pressing challenges. … In preparing for the Olympics, we would pull together to produce thousands of units of new affordable housing, improve our transportation systems, create new jobs and establish new parks and recreational facilities.”