LA 2024: Los Angeles and Paris are final options for future Olympics

The latest update in the LA 2024 bid is good news for the city.

Budapest withdrew from the race to host the 2024 Olympics, leaving only Los Angeles and Paris as contenders to be the face of the world for that summer games.

Citizens of Budapest had accumulated more than 266,000 signatures in a petition to drop the games, triggering Mayor Istvan Tarlo to formally drop the bid. Though the Hungarian capital would have been the first Eastern European city to host the summer games, concerns from recent budget disasters and abandoned stadiums left people with a sense of foreboding rather than excitement at the potential to host.

As recent games have been fraught with overspending and negative publicity in the run-up to the events, Los Angeles is renowned as a host city.

The 1984 games are still held as the paragon of Olympics, as is recognized as the first wildly profitable fortnight in Olympic history.

Last month, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to support a memo of understanding with the LA 2024 Olympic Bid Committee that is set to provide protection, both in the form of finance and veto, over non-Los Angeles venues if L.A. is chosen as host.

Los Angeles is uniquely equipped to host the games, as its vast geography and existing infrastructure would be utilized to tamper extraneous costs of the privately-funded games.

The LA 2024 Bid is well-organized and structured and was, along with Paris, considered the long-term favorite to host when the decision is made in September, 2017 by the International Olympic Committee.

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The budget for the games is projected at $5.3 billion, less than a third of the cost of the 2016 games in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.