Para-Sport 'Never Been In Better Position' For 2024 Race

(ATR) International Paralympic Committee President Phil Craven says the 2024 race shows how far the para-sport movement has come.

Craven says that interacting with the four bid cities vying for the 2024 Olympics and Paralympics shows how deeply each one cares about growing the Paralympics and para-sport movement.

"We’ve never had a better level of communication with the potential candidate cities than we have for 2024," Craven said to Around the Rings.

"The time when we know as an organization where we are at with success in the movement of the Games is with the interaction with bidding cities.I’ve had informal meetings with each of the organizing committees or with representatives who work for the organizing committees.

"We’ve never been in a better position than we have been with the 2024 race and it is really, really exciting."

Budapest, Los Angeles, Paris, and Rome are the four candidate cities for the 2024 Games. Of the cities only Rome has hosted the Paralympics previously, as the Summer Games host city was not tied to the Olympics formally until 1988. Craven, through his IPC presidency, holds membership in the IOC and will be one of the voters for host city of the 2024 Games.

All four candidate cities submitted the first part of the candidature file to the IOC on Feb. 17. Cities will submit part two to the IOC on Oct. 7, and part three on Feb. 3, 2017. The IOC will decide the next Olympic host city at the body’s annual session in September 2017.

Written by Aaron Bauer in Rio de Janeiro

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