Mayor Eric Garcetti and Olympian Janet Evans were in Washington D.C. Wednesday to gain Congressional support for LA 2024.
Garcetti was at the U.S. Capitol with LA 2024 Chair Casey Wasserman and four-time Olympic gold medalist Janet Evans for the introduction of a bipartisan House resolution supporting America’s bid for the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
"It's in our blood, it's in our DNA," Garecetti said. "It's been too long."
Los Angeles is running for the 2024 Games against Rome, Paris and Budapest, Hungary. The International Olympic Committee will make the selection in 2017.
With Boston bowing out last year, the LA City Council voted unanimously to approve a proposal to authorize Garcetti to execute agreements related to the Olympic bid. The U.S. Olympic Committee later announced that it had selected LA as the United States candidate.
"Our city has everything to offer," Evans said.
The Summer Olympics were last held in the United States in 1996, when Atlanta was the site. LA hosted the 1984 and 1932 Olympics.
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"LA 2024 is a bid that unites our diverse city and nation," Wasserman said.
The United States did not make a bid to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, which were awarded to Tokyo in 2013. Los Angeles sought to be the U.S. candidate to host the 2016 Games but was beaten by Chicago, whose bid was ultimately rejected by the International Olympic Committee in favor of Rio de Janeiro.
LA is looking to join London as the only cities to host the Summer Olympics three times. The second-largest U.S. city initially lost the opportunity to bid to Boston but regained it after the East Coast city backed out over concerns about financial liability.
