Canada. They owned it, and when the Americans finally manage

DOHA, Qatar -- Los Angeles sought to allay concerns over Donald Trumps election, Paris played up its glamorous venues and Budapest set itself apart as a midsized alternative as the three cities made their first public pitches Tuesday in the bid race for the 2024 Summer Olympics.With 10 months before the vote, the three candidates had a chance to deliver their message in 20-minute presentations to the general assembly of the Association of National Olympic Committees, a gathering of more than 1,000 delegates from around the world.The meeting occurred exactly after a week after Trumps victory over Hillary Clinton in the American presidential election, a result that could affect Los Angeles hopes of bringing the Summer Olympics back to the U.S. for the first time since Atlanta hosted in 1996.Trumps comments during the divisive campaign about Muslims and Mexicans and some of his foreign policy views might not help the California citys chances with some of the IOCs 98 members, who represent a range of nationalities, cultures and religions.American sprinter Allyson Felix, a Los Angeles-born African-American sprinter and six-time Olympic gold medalist, addressed those concerns during the presentation. Without mentioning Trump by name, her message was clear.We just finished our presidential election, and some of you may question Americas commitment to its founding principles, Felix said. I have one message for you: Please dont doubt us. Americas diversity is our greatest strength.Felix said America needs the Games to help make our nation better, now more than ever.She raised the issue of race and slavery in explaining the history and diversity of the country.Were also a nation with individuals like me, descendants of people who came to America, not of their own free will but against it, Felix said. But were not a nation that clings to our past, no matter how glorious -- or how painful. Americans rush toward the future.I believe L.A. is a perfect choice for the 2024 Games, because the face of our city reflects the face of the Olympic Movement itself, she said.IOC vice president John Coates, of Australia, was among the delegates in the audience and said Felixs words hit the mark.I did think Allyson addressed the Trump issue very well, he told The Associated Press. I think the question was hanging. I thought it was very, very well-crafted.Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, a Democrat who was a prominent Clinton supporter, also took up the theme of diversity and openness, saying his city can deliver transformative games.I see an America that remains actively engaged in the world, he said. I see an America that is outward-looking, ready to play its role alongside the community of nations to address our worlds most pressing challenges.Speaking afterward, Garcetti said an Olympic bid stands on a citys own merits and does not depend on who is the president of the country.Today we just reminded people that any nation is made of its people, not one person, he said. We think that is something that, whether its Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, transcends all of us as Americans. I dont think that the Hungarians or the French or the Americans are making their bid plans based on what the national leader says.Los Angeles hosted the Games in 1932 and 1984. New York and Chicago failed in bids for the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, respectively.This is our third attempt to host the Olympic Games in the past 10 years and for many reasons ... I must say this is the most remarkable U.S. bid I have ever seen, U.S. Olympic Committee president Larry Probst said. We have learned many lessons from our previous bids, and failure can be a great teacher.Paris, which hosted the Games in 1900 and 1924, has been considered in a tight race with Los Angeles. The French team stressed the bids compact nature, with 85 percent of athletes housed within 30 minutes of their venues.In Paris in 2024, we will swim in the River Seine, Mayor Anne Hidalgo told the delegates. We will travel in driverless vehicles. We will celebrate the Games on the Champs Elysees, with the Eiffel Tower and all along the Seine from the Grand Palais to Saint-Denis.The Spanish-born Hidalgo cited her own background as an example of what Paris offers.To be an immigrant, to be a woman, to have dual nationality and to be able to be mayor of Paris, this city has brought me opportunity and freedom, she said. Paris has an incredible force.Budapest, which has never hosted the Olympics and is making its seventh bid, has been seen as the outsider in the race. The Hungarians said they need to build only three new venues and will harness the city center for the Games.Most of all, they said Budapest offers something different.A Games for one midsized global city is a Games for all midsized global cities, across the world, bid chairman Balazs Furjes said. A Games in Budapest sends the message that the Olympic Games are not simply for the mega-city, but for midsize cities, too.The Doha audience included officials from 205 national Olympic committees, dozens of international sports federations and, most importantly, dozens of members of the International Olympic Committee, which will vote on the host city in September in Lima, Peru.Under tighter IOC rules, these are the first of only three presentations during the two-year bid race. The second will be at a private technical briefing for IOC members in Switzerland in July, and the third will be the final presentations on the day of the vote in Lima. Cheap Air Jordan 11 Retro All Black . Louis. 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Rose tore the meniscus in his right knee at Portland in November and was ruled out for the remainder of the season by the Bulls. TORONTO -- My favorite part of this job is sitting in empty stadiums and arenas. We get to arrive early, and we get to stay late. Bookending a big event with two different kinds of silence -- the calms before and after the storm -- gives you a fuller feeling for the game. Those silences, how they are broken and how they are restored, can tell you so much about what might happen and what did.Tuesday night was the first time I saw Canada and Team USA play hockey in person.Ive watched them battle on TV however many times, and each time Ive wished I were there. Ive had more than my share of fortunate experiences, but I still wanted so badly to watch my country, which happens to be hockey-obsessed Canada, take on the U.S., which happens to be better than us at every other sport.Its hard to explain to Americans why these games matter so much to us. Imagine our countries were brothers, one big and one little. The big one has everything he might want but a single beautiful, perfect toy that the little brother loves with all his heart. He thinks of it when hes awake, and he dreams of it when hes asleep.And then his big brother comes into his room and tries to take his most sacred thing away.I was excited, even nervous, in the quiet before the game. Sweden and Finland had played in the afternoon, and the Air Canada Centre had emptied and been cleaned like a plane readied for its next flight. It was close to silent, just a few workers performing their pregame rituals.It was also pretty dark. It felt as though the entire building were asleep somehow. It wasnt hard to imagine it breathing softly.Then I heard a shout. It was, if Im being honest, a very loud F-bomb. It was startling and out of place in the dim and the quiet. I thought one of the workers had hurt himself somehow.Then I realized it had come from Canadas Joe Thornton.It isnt always easy to see it through his beard, but Thorntons default expression, at least this week, has been a wide smile. He has radiated kid joy.Now he was swearing really, really loudly. This couldnt be good.Closer investigation revealed -- with no small amount of relief -- that he was swearing because he had let a soccer ball drop in a game of keepie-uppie that he and his teammates were playing in one of the tunnels leading to the empty, waiting ice.Maybe an hour before their big game against the Americans, they were laughing and joking with each other and kicking around a ball, and Joe Thornton was yelling terrible things with a smile.I decided right then that they were going to win, and they were going to win big.Im going to try to be gentle here so that I dont sound like Im glooating.ddddddddddddThis American team has been terrible, an embarrassment, badly built and badly coached and deserving of every bad thing anyone ever says about them.I really am being gentle.They have been miserable and gutless. They lost their opener to lightly regarded Team Europe without scoring a goal. They took to the ice against Canada looking as though they were lining up for the dentist. They snatched the early lead and then gave up two goals in 14 seconds and never looked for an instant as though they might recover.This is our championship game, John Tortorella had said before it. His team had supposedly been custom-made to beat Canada at its own sport, to hit and then get hit and then hit back even harder.I wish they had been half as hard as they thought they were. I also wish they had remembered that grit is useless without goals.Whenever I imagined finally going to see Canada play Team USA, I imagined watching a blinding, deafening, electrifying three periods of hockey, and maybe more.Instead I watched an absolute dismantling.One of the loudest cheers came with a little more than five minutes left in the second period. Canada pinned Team USA in their zone. They shot the puck and retrieved it, shot it again and took it back, shot it again and followed it.They did to the puck what these Americans were supposed to do to Canada. They owned it, and when the Americans finally managed to hold the puck long enough to clear it, the crowd applauded.The fans were cheering Canada for their effort, and to be fair, this team is as beautiful and perfect as the toy in that little brothers dreams.But they might as well have been cheering the Americans for getting their first touch in what felt like forever. They almost needed to feel as though their big brother still wants what they have.Thats how unbalanced this game was. Applause could be mistaken for pity. A minute into the third period, Team USAs Max Pacioretty took a dumb boarding penalty against Logan Couture in the Canadian zone, and thats all that remained of the grand American plan: Hit from behind, because thats the only place they are anymore.The rest of the game was meaningless, and now so is the rest of this tournament for Team USA.For one of the few times in my professional life, and on a night when I never imagined I might, I didnt have to wait until after the game for the second, concluding round of silence. It came well before the end of it, when I listened for Americas hockey heart, and I didnt hear a thing. ' ' '