The International Olympic Committee (IOC) may award both the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics this year, meaning both Paris and Los Angeles may emerge victorious.

A working group has been established by the IOC to to explore changes to the candidature process, with a joint award during the IOC Session in Lima, Peru “on the table”.

Thomas Bach, IOC president, said: “We have two excellent candidates from two major Olympic countries, two candidatures that are embracing Olympic Agenda 2020 very much with the great use of existing facilities, with therefore very low investment budgets, with a modern approach to the Games, with great attractivity for youth.

“This is the position you like to be in. Even more so if you look at the world in this moment, where we can see lots of instability, a lot of fragility, aa lot of uncertainty.”

Paris and Los Angeles are the two remaining candidates for the 2024 Olympics after Budapest, Rome and Hamburg pulled out of the running.

Both cities have hosted the Games previously.

Separately, the global governing body has announced that Fukushima – the Japanese city that suffered a tsunami nuclear disaster in 2011 – will host baseball and softball matches during the 2020 Games in Tokyo as an “expression of solidarity”.

The Yokohama Stadium will be the other baseball and softball venue during the Games.