L.A. 2024’s early campaign message in its attempts to land the Olympics has emphasized its commitment to the “athlete experience,” and co-Chair Casey Wasserman explained why: The city is certain it can deliver the other, traditionally more fraught aspects of a bid. “What the Games in L.A. has the opportunity to do is focus the attention on the athletes the entire time, because our infrastructure, from both a sporting and non-sporting perspective, is very well-established, and clear,” Wasserman said. "That means we can make sure this is really all about the competitors of the Olympics and Paralympic Games." Recent Games have been plagued by financial, organizational or political challenges that rarely involve the underlying sports, such as Sochi’s dramatic cost overruns for last year's Games, Rio’s budget-cutting for the '16 Games and the Tokyo’s controversies over its costly stadium and allegedly plagiarized logo for '20. L.A. has nearly all of its proposed venues already in place and is discussing renovations and improvements rather than greenfield construction projects in most cases. “Athletes are at the heart of any competition, so making sure that their experience, from the second they arrive to the second they depart -- and all that happens in between -- is a world-class experience, they deserve that,” Wasserman said.
WORKING THE ROOM: Wasserman and L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti are both working the rooms at the Association of National Olympic Committees' general assembly at the Washington Hilton in DC, where more than 1,200 officials from 204 national committees are gathered this week. They are taking a very light touch, mostly “listening and learning,” Wasserman said. All their competitors in the '24 race -- Budapest, Hamburg, Paris and Rome -- also are attending. He said he is diving into the Olympics bid because he wants to show off a "new L.A." Wasserman: "There’s cranes all over the city. There's construction, there's opportunity, there are companies like SpaceX and Snapchat. L.A. has become a place where the traditional lens of Hollywood and movie stars is not what L.A. is. That’s a remarkable transformation, and we’d be very excited to show that off and really elevate L.A. on the world stage.” The committee is close to hiring a CEO to handle the day-to-day operations of the bid, he added.
