TIJUANA.- As we reported last week Tijuana was mentioned as a possible host for the 2024 Olympic Games, in a dual bid with San Diego, California. This week, Carlos Padilla, head of the Mexican Olympic Committee, announced that he will meet with his counterparts in the Unites States to see if there is any possibility of uniting both cities and creating a bid for the first binational host in history.

It all seems ideal, given that Tijuana is on of the world's most visited border cities and San Diego has plenty of sport and athletic infrastructure, along with the benefit of being in the United States, which many observers say has a very good chance of being a host country for the 2024 Summer Games.

Other U.S. cities in the running are Boston, San Francisco, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles, with these last two supposedly having the best chances.

While perhaps hard to imagine right now, a dual, cross-border Olympic bid might draw millions in tourism, investments and interest into the Baja and Souther California regions, and although there are many infrastructure challenges, the Mexican Committee is taking it seriously and wants to make it possible ten years from now.

"The studies are serious and the idea is to host the 2024 Olympics, hoping to share them with the United States¨, said Carlos Padilla.

The U.S. Olympic Committee, and Mexico's, The U.S. Olympic Committee, and Mexico's, think that 2024 will be the right time to bring the Olympic Summer Games back to North America, after what would then be a 28 year absence. believe that 2024 will be the right time[/url] to bring the Olympic Summer Games back to North America, after what would then be a 28 year absence.

Mexico's last real bid for the Games was back in the 60s for the 1968 Games, which it won but never bid again. The U.S.'s last bid was for the 2016 Olympics, back in 2009, when Chicago was thrown out of the running in the first round of voting.

The next Olympic Games will be in Rio de Janeiro 2016, less than two years from now, and in Tokyo, 2020. If San Diego and Tijuana are elected, this would be the fifth edition for the US, after having hosted the Olympics in Saint Louis, 1904, Los Angeles in 1932 and 1984 and Atlanta in 1996. For Mexico it would its second one after hosting them.

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