LA 2024: Los Angeles Could Host Paralympics Today

(ATR) Leaders of the Los Angeles 2024 bid team tell Around the Rings the existing infrastructure in the city allows the team to focus on developing the experience of the Games.

"Most of the facilities if not all are new since 1990 which means they are fully compliant and capable of hosting the Paralympics today," LA 2024 bid chief Casey Wasserman tells ATR. "Facilities that are accessible, facilities that are capable and facilities that can operate at the scale of the Olympic Games.

"What that combination allows is to do is focus on the experience. The experience of all of our constituents can allow us to give an unprecedented level of attention, focus and enhancement because of that existing infrastructure."

LA 2024 leaders Wasserman, Anita DeFrantz and Candace Cable spoke with ATR in Rio de Janeiro while attending the Rio 2016 observer program for the Paralympics. They say their biggest takeaway from these Games is that educating the public about Paralympic sport can lead to a more inclusive society.

"Different isn’t bad – different is different," says Wasserman. "It’s important for fans and consumers and the country to understand that. We think America has a lot of opportunity to go in terms of understanding, engaging and supporting those sports."

"Education is the biggest piece that will come out of this, and LA 2024 is really poised to be able to take that piece to the next level and really create this impact that includes technology, innovation and creates a real social shift," Cable tells ATR.

DeFrantz says Los Angeles has already begun eliminating the distinction between able and disabled starting with the youth of the city.

"In public schools kids with abilities and disabilities take part in sport together, they’ve stopped the segregation and it’s made it much better," she says. "So the kids growing up by 2024 will have both sets of experiences so they’ll be very interested in both the Olympics and Paralympics."

The bid leaders say they’ve also begun to notice Brazilians start to be more inclusive to people with disabilities.

"I think the Brazilians have a done a great job embracing [the Paralympics]," Wasserman says. "The crowds have been spectacular, engaged, supportive and excited."

DeFrantz points out that the only frustration she has had with the Rio Paralympics is some of the venues have bad lines of sight for people in wheelchairs such as Cable who could not see goalball matches well due to barriers in the way. LA 2024 says that having a Paralympian such as Cable on their bid team is a great advantage because they may not have noticed something like that if she had not come to Rio.

"Now we can look at existing venues and say is this going to work because there will need to be more chairs than at maybe a normal venue, we can work with that and make that better," says DeFrantz.

Cable lives in L.A. and says the city already does a great job of making people with disabilities not feel excluded and that it would only improve with the Games.

"I’ve been jumping on and off different buses and trains and finding that pretty easy to do that," she says. "I think if we hosted the Games now we’d be fully compliant in terms of accessibility. But if we get the Games it will be way above and beyond compliant. It will be a Games where you won’t notice if it’s accessible or not."

Cable says if L.A. is awarded the Paralympics it would further educate its citizens that we are all the same despite perceived differences.

"Part of our legacy is taking that next perspective to showing that everyone is capable, everyone has the opportunity to achieve whatever it is you want to achieve," she says.

The IOC will choose the host city of 2024 Games in September 2017. Los Angeles is competing with Budapest, Paris and Rome.

Reported by Kevin Nutley in Rio de Janeiro.

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