Mayor Eric Garcetti to lead LA 24 contingent at Olympic meeting

Mayor Eric Garcetti and sports executive Casey Wasserman will represent Los Angeles at an international Olympic assembly in Washington this week.

The LA 24 contingent hopes to meet with a variety of officials at the Assn. of National Olympic Committees event, which is set to begin Tuesday and continue through Saturday.

Among those scheduled to attend the assembly are Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee, ANOC President Sheik Ahmad Al-Fahad Al-Sabah and dozens of IOC members.

Such meetings are seen as crucial to Los Angeles and the other four cities -- Paris; Rome; Hamburg, Germany and Budapest, Hungary -- that have embarked on a two-year bidding competition to host the 2024 Summer Games.

“This is like an election at your school -- it’s that intimate,” Garcetti said of trying to woo IOC members, who are scheduled to select a host city in 2017. “It comes down to whether they trust you.”

The ANOC is the organization of national Olympic committees -- such as the U.S. Olympic Committee, which is hosting the assembly -- from around the world.

“I imagine the mayor and I will be quite busy,” Wasserman said. “It’s our job to start the process, meeting people, person by person.”