Trump's immigration order a hurdle for Los Angeles' 2024 Olympic bid

Christine Brennan | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption Mo Farah: Trump's immigration policy 'made me an alien' Olympic runner Mo Farah says President Trump's restrictive immigration plan has made him an outsider in America.

Before the 2016 presidential election, officials within the U.S. Olympic community were very concerned that a Donald Trump presidency could damage the chances of Los Angeles to win the right to host the 2024 Summer Olympic Games.

Their worst fears already are being realized.

While the politics of international sports pale in comparison to the heart-wrenching drama playing out in airports around the country, President Trump’s executive order barring citizens of seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States is creating great concern among U.S. officials hoping to host the first Summer Olympic Games in the United States since 1996 in Atlanta.

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a key player in the LA 2024 bid, has spoken out forcefully against Trump’s actions, and one U.S. Olympic official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the Trump ban and world-wide reaction to it certainly is not helping L.A.’s chances. The official requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Los Angeles is competing against Paris and Budapest to host the 2024 Games. The International Olympic Committee is scheduled to select one of those three cities on Sept. 13, 2017, in Lima, Peru, which makes the next seven months a particularly crucial time to line up enough international support to win the Games.

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No city vying for the Olympics ever wants controversy attached to its bid, and that’s particularly the case for a U.S. city, which always receives increased scrutiny simply because the United States is the Olympic world’s greatest super power athletically, corporately and financially.

Even before Trump defeated Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8, four people involved with U.S. and Los Angeles Olympic efforts told USA TODAY Sports that he could make it difficult for L.A. to win over IOC voters from Islamic and Latin countries, as well as female IOC members, due to inflammatory comments he made during the campaign.

Little has changed since November, even though Trump has expressed his support for and interest in the L.A. bid. In fact, there’s a belief in international Olympic circles that Trump actually might help L.A. with IOC voters in Russia and some former Soviet Bloc nations, although there really is no way to know which way the political winds will blow within the IOC, a traditionally fickle and elitist organization.

Trump’s Muslim ban is entirely new territory for a U.S. bid city, and not in a good way. It flies in the face of L.A.’s elaborate and finely tuned strategy to win the Games by presenting to the world the most diverse and inclusive leadership and image of any U.S. bid city in history. Frankly, Trump’s ban is everything that L.A.’s bid is not.

Trump could present another problem to L.A.’s bid later this year. Officials do not want him to go to Lima to speak on behalf of the L.A. bid in September, several people have told USA TODAY Sports.

This has less to do with Trump’s controversial persona than with an unfortunate piece of presidential history. In October 2009, at the height of his popularity worldwide, President Barack Obama flew overnight to Copenhagen to speak on behalf of Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

Instead of inspiring IOC members to vote for Chicago, however, Obama’s presence infuriated some of the IOC’s most pampered delegates who complained that they had to get up early and go through extra security. Chicago was voted out in the first round of balloting.

L.A. organizers don’t want to risk having history repeat itself this September. This philosophy isn’t specifically tailored to Trump. Had Clinton been elected, they would not have wanted her to fly in either. The bad memories of that ill-fated Obama visit still run that deep.