IOC president Thomas Bach to light Coliseum Olympic cauldron at Rams game Sept. 17

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles’ celebration of landing the 2028 Olympic Games next week will include International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.

Bach will light the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum’s Olympic cauldron during the Rams-Washington game Sept. 17, the Southern California News Group has learned.

Bach’s two-day visit to Southern California will come four days after the IOC in Lima, Peru, is expected to unanimously approve the awarding of the 2028 Games to Los Angeles as part of a tripartite agreement in which Paris will host the 2024 Games.

Bach was the driving force behind the IOC decision in July to jointly award two Olympics for the first time since 1921.

“A win, win, win situation,” Bach said of the IOC decision.

In addition to attending the NFL game, Bach will also meet with the Los Angeles 2028 organizing committee before traveling to New York, where is he scheduled to attend the United Nations General Assembly.

Los Angeles securing the 2028 Games on Tuesday follows efforts by U.S. Olympic Committee chairman Larry Probst and chief executive Scott Blackmun to improve relations between the U.S. Olympic movement and the IOC and Bach in particular after years of frostiness between the IOC and previous USOC administrations and the Obama administration.

Bach met with President Trump at the White House earlier this year.

Mayor Eric Garcetti, LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman, Probst and Blackmun traveled to the IOC’s Lausanne headquarters within hours of the USOC selecting Los Angeles as the U.S. bid city candidate in September 2015 after the USOC withdrew the candidacy of Boston, its initial choice.

“LA and the IOC have been such great partners for so many years,” Garcetti said recently. “We understand each other and we bring out the very best in one another. That’s called partnership and that’s what we want to build on.”