There was no Oscars Ceremony La La Land moment on this occasion - nobody got the dates mixed up, or announced that the winner was….Moscow.

Phew.

"This historic double allocation is a 'win-win-win' situation for the city of Paris, the city of Los Angeles and the IOC," IOC President Thomas Bach said, off-the-cuff, continuing his inspired riff with the following: "It is hard to imagine something better.

"Ensuring the stability of the Olympic Games for the athletes of the world for the next 11 years is something extraordinary.

"These are two great cities from two great countries with a great Olympic history.

"Both cities are very enthusiastic about the Games and are promoting the Olympic spirit in a fantastic way."

The President's stance was smartly underpinned by the newly-elected International Paralympic Committee (IPC) President Andrew Parsons, in attendance at the Session having taken the over baton from the man who dropped off Bach's Christmas card list last year following his pre-Games announcement that the IPC would ban Russian athletes from taking part in the Paralympics until that country's doping crisis was satisfactorily sorted.

The announcement at the start of this Session that Sir Philip Craven was no longer an IOC member is awaiting ratification as an Olympic cold shoulder world record.

Parsons, a very smart cookie, lauded the decision to jointly award consecutive Games as "a wise and astute move". Which, given the recent history of the IPC and the IOC, was a wise and astute move.

Paris and Los Angeles will thus become the second and third cities after London to host the Olympic Games three times.

Paris had previously staged them in 1900 and 1924 and Los Angeles in 1932 and 1984.

Win, win, win, win, win. Everybody loves a winner, don't they? But then everybody loves a loser too and this latest Olympic sleight of hand has deprived us of the familiar, ghoulish spectacle of the out-voted.

Pictures of shattered supporters - hopes departed, faces crumpled, redundant posters and flags slack in their hands - are a staple of Olympic coverage. In a sense, it is one of the great Olympic events.

Grey-faced bid leaders and politicians returning home with defiant messages of renewed hope for a Games four years further on. Stronger through struggle. Onwards ever onwards.

But now we have lost the losers.

The drama has always been real, because losing hurts. Paris have, this time, avoided the pain of their three recent unsuccessful bids for the 1992, 2008 and 2012 Games.

No such luck for Madrid, who have lost out on successive bids for the 2012, 2016 and 2020 Olympics.

Los Angeles, whose official hashtag has now changed to #FollowParis, marked the latest announcement with a characteristically smart little GIF in which a tagline of "The Games Are Back" melts into an image of the very fetching bid logo being showered with celebratory confetti.

But as the insidethegames Live Blog of this IOC session has - wisely and astutely - highlighted, Los Angeles have yet to win an Olympic contest where they have bid against another city.

They were awarded the 1932 Olympics at the IOC Session in Rome in 1923 when they were the only bidders.

LA were also given the 1984 Olympics, at the IOC Session in Athens in 1978, as the last ones standing following the withdrawal of Tehran.

On the occasions when they have bid against other cities, as they did when they contested the 1924 Games with Paris, LA have lost.

Indeed, on cold reflection in their moment of heated glory, Los Angeles stand out as historic Olympic losers, having bid unsuccessfully for the Games of 1928, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1976 and 1980 that went, respectively, to Amsterdam, London, Helsinki, Melbourne, Montreal and Moscow.

That record represents a huge bulk of frustrated enterprise, energy and hope. Just the kind of thing the IOC want to avoid in their 2020 vision of a win-win future.

But at least LA can celebrate now, even if the interim before their Olympic party is going to be an unprecedentedly lengthy one.

That cannot be said for another serially thwarted US Olympic contender - the mid-west "Motor City" of Detroit, which bid for the 1944, 1952, 1956, 1960, 1964, 1968 and 1972 Summer Olympics. Without success.

In a recent learned article in the Detroit Free Press, Stefan Szymanski, Professor of Sport Management at the University of Michigan, explains how Detroit's Olympic dreams were carried for more than 30 years by self-made businessman Fred Matthaei, who first coordinated a bid for the 1940 Games once Tokyo had dropped out because of Japan's war against China.

"To help him promote the bid," Szymanski wrote, "he called on another native Detroiter and self-made businessman, Avery Brundage, then President of the United States Olympic Committee and soon to become President of the IOC.

"Brundage encouraged Matthaei, arguing that although 1940 would probably be awarded to Helsinki, the IOC was an honourable organisation and would always repay those cities that showed a commitment to the Games while respecting the priority of others. The Games were duly awarded to Helsinki."

And Detroit is still waiting….