“I see your question,” Estanguet said, which really meant, “I see your trap.”

“I don’t want to comment anything about Trump,” Estanguet said. “What I can tell you is that I think the I.O.C. needs to get a sustainable Games at the moment. This is really important. Personally, I think that’s part of the credibility of the whole system, and not only during the Games time.”

The Los Angeles bid is, of course, making big commitments of its own to sustainability, and the truth is that the I.O.C., which has gotten so much wrong in recent years, is lucky — very lucky — to have two bids of this quality.

Now it appears the I.O.C. will find a way to avoid choosing at all. This kind of goal-post shifting in a bidding process is far from ideal. Imagine how many other candidates might have thrown their hats into the rings if it had been clear from the start that the I.O.C. was going to award 2024 and 2028 simultaneously?

But at this existential moment for the I.O.C. — with cities and citizenries questioning the value of the Olympic project — it looks to be the right call to go with two close-to-sure things and regroup.

Estanguet and Paris continue to insist in public that they are interested only in 2024, but Estanguet also made it clear on Monday — 100 days before the scheduled I.O.C. vote in Lima, Peru — that he has no problem with the dual-award concept.

“There is no doubt it makes sense at the moment for the I.O.C. to look at this situation and see if it’s possible to have a double award,” he said. “But at the same time, we remain on the same line. We keep on pushing the same line, saying our project has been built for ’24.”