Amid calls for his ouster for his association with Ghislaine Maxwell, L.A. 2028 Olympic committee chairman Casey Wasserman is greeted warmly by IOC officials in Milan.
Days before the Milan-Cortina Olympics were set to open, a group of LA28 officials faced the International Olympic Committee to signal a new phase of their own Games process.
Two-and-a-half years before the opening ceremony at the Coliseum and SoFi Stadium, LA28 chief executive officer Reynold Hoover said LA28 is transitioning from “planning to proving.”
“We are validating our plans and training today,” Hoover told IOC members at the committee’s 145th session, “so that when the world arrives in L.A., we will be ready.”
In a planned presentation to the IOC, the private organizing committee responsible for paying for, planning and delivering L.A.’s first Olympics since 1984 hailed the success of the recent ticket registration process that brought in more than 1.5 million registrants in the first 24 hours, the volunteer program that attracted 180,000 interested workers before official applications open this summer and the $1 billion from the federal government promised for security.
Read more:L.A. politicians call on Casey Wasserman to resign from Olympics committee
During the next year, LA28 plans to finalize a “transit-first” plan, reveal the Games mascot and announce a torch relay that will touch all 50 states. With the world’s largest sporting event coming, the group plans to start early test runs for logistics including sports operations, medical emergencies and transportation.
Every practice run counts considering the scale of what’s to come: the 2028 Olympics will be the largest in history with more than 11,000 Olympians expected in 2028.
The challenge of bringing athletes from every country to the United States became more complicated under the Trump Administration’s recent travel bans. The Olympic charter mandates that host countries allow all eligible stakeholders to enter the country for the Games.
LA28 and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee assured the IOC that visas will not be a problem in 2028 as the groups have worked closely with the federal government for years. The state department named major sporting events including the FIFA World Cup and the Olympics as exemptions to the travel bans. LA28 announced a plan to launch a special visa portal for athletes and stakeholders that will “ensure clarity, consistency and timeliness in visa applications,” Hoover said.
“The L.A. Games will not happen in a vacuum,” LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman told IOC members. “The world is complicated and unpredictable. Conflicts within and among nations ignite and resolve. We are not naive to this reality. We take it seriously and will face it head on. I’d argue that it’s exactly because of the se challenges [that] the world needs a strong Olympic games more than ever. Rather than focus on what is frightening, let us focus on the opportunity this moment presents: the opportunity to undeniably establish the Olympics as the singular unifying force for the world.”
Wasserman was chosen to lead the effort to bring the Olympics back to L.A. in 2017 by then-mayor Eric Garcetti. But the high-powered Hollywood agent and businessman has been at the center of controversy recently surrounding racy emails he exchanged with Ghislaine Maxwell that were revealed in the latest Epstein files.
Multiple L.A. politicians have called for Wasserman’s resignation. But he was greeted warmly by IOC members during the presentation. Nicole Hoevertsz, the chair of the IOC coordination commission in charge of overseeing LA28’s progress, said in her speech she has “full trust” in Hoover, Wasserman, USPOC chair Gene Sykes and the entire LA28 team.
The organizing group was assembled as an nonprofit organization that operates independently from the IOC or the city of L.A. When asked of Wasserman's status Wednesday, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass didn't make a comment after speaking at a Black History Month news conference, but later issued a statement saying in part, "Ultimately, any decision on the LA28 leadership must be made by the LA28 Board."
IOC president Kirsty Coventry was asked twice at a news conference Wednesday wrapping up the IOC's two-day session about Wasserman. Both times, she said there was nothing for her to add to Wasserman's statement he released Saturday saying he regretted his correspondence with Maxwell.
"From the IOC point of view, the OCOG [Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games] and how they are structured is not something we are going to get involved into," Coventry said.
While IOC members were encouraged by the announcement of the special visa portal for athletes, they also wondered whether international fans will be assured of the same opportunities. LA28 boasted ticket registrations from more than 150 countries in the first 24 hours, but Ethiopian IOC member Dagmawit Girmay Berhane questioned if all those fans would be able to access visas.
Sykes cited the upcoming FIFA World Cup as a “test run” for the system.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Category: General Sports
