Casey Wasserman builds Los Angeles connections with USOC

Reporting from Colorado Springs, Colo. —  Not a whole lot about Los Angeles’ proposal to host the 2024 Summer Olympics has changed in the three weeks since the city officially entered the race.

So when bid leader Casey Wasserman spent two days at a U.S. Olympic Committee assembly here this week, it was less about building venues and more about building relationships.

Wasserman gave a speech to a crowded ballroom. He worked the room at a country club mixer. On Friday, he met privately with USOC board members.

“He’s just doing it the right way,” said Scott Blackmun, the USOC’s chief executive.

The rapport between a candidate city and national officials in its own country can be problematic — everyone has different ideas about how to run a bid campaign. Wasserman seemed to understand this when he arrived in Colorado.

“Let me be clear,” he told a group of sports executives Thursday. “We need all of you to help L.A. finish first in this race.”

If nothing else, he can count on longstanding relationships with Blackmun, who used to work for AEG in Los Angeles, and USOC Chairman Larry Probst.

The chairman of video game giant Electronic Arts, Probst once hired Wasserman as an intern.

“He was a game tester,” Probst recalled. “If you’re a 17-year-old and you get hired for a summer job to be a game tester and you get paid — he was a pretty happy kid.”

At this stage, board members wanted to confirm Wasserman can now devote himself to the bid while running a large management company and administering his family’s philanthropic foundation.

LA 2024 plans to hire a chief executive in the next few weeks to oversee daily operations, but Wasserman assured the board he would stay closely involved.

“Look, this is going to be Casey’s No. 1 priority over the next two years,” Probst said, adding: “I think the board came away extremely impressed.”

There were other issues for the USOC to address at the assembly.

The board talked about disappointing results for American athletes at the recent world championships for swimming and track and field. Probst said: “We clearly have some work ahead.”

Officials throughout the world continue to discuss pollution in the waters off Rio de Janeiro, where athletes will compete in sailing and open-water swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics.

“At the end of the day, we think it’s a healthy dialogue,” Blackmun said. “We think it’s very appropriate that these questions are being asked.”

In another matter, the USOC is negotiating to sell its Chula Vista training center to city officials there, then rent back space for athletes who live and work out at the facility.

But, for all of these issues, most of the talk focused on Los Angeles and the competition with four other cities — Paris, Rome, Hamburg and Budapest — that will culminate with an International Olympic Committee vote in the summer of 2017.

As for the man who will oversee the bid, Blackmun said, “I think he gave the board a lot of confidence that he has the passion and the vision to get this done.”

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