2024 Olympics: the 12 TOP partners will act as advisors to each of the candidate cities

The 12 TOP worldwide Olympic partners will act as advisors to the five candidate cities for the 2024 Olympic Games, the IOC announced during the second "Smart Cities & Sport" conference in Lausanne (SUI), on 14/10/2015. This initiative, which is part of the Olympic Agenda 2020, does not involve any financial or commercial support. The sponsors will provide information, advice and expertise to each of the five cities.

"Up until now they have not been involved in the bidding process, but we feel it would be useful, if this can be done in a fair, equitable and IOC controlled manner, with no advantage to any one bidder," said Jacqueline Barrett, the associate director of the Olympic Games Department of the IOC, to the website insidethegames.biz, on 14/10/2015.

The five candidate cities to host the 2024 Olympic Games are Paris (FRA), Los Angeles (USA), Hamburg (GER), Rome (ITA) and Budapest (HUN). The host city of 2024 Olympic Games will be chosen in September 2017 during the 130^th IOC session in Lima (PER).

The IOC TOP partner programme

• The "TOP" programme, established in 1985, is the…