Washington DC Is Making a Run At Hosting the 2024 Olympics
Post – The bid to bring the 2024 Summer Olympics to Washington has been one of the more stealth lobbying campaigns based in the nation’s capital these past months. In deliberately low-key style, as U.S. Olympic Committee officials have directed, a group of the region’s deep-pocketed, well-connected business leaders has been trying to convince the organization to name Washington as the country’s nominee to host the 2024 Games. DC2024, as the effort is called, represents a regional bid that incorporates the clout and sporting venues of Washington, as well as northern Virginia and Maryland. It is led by Russ Ramsey, a Virginia based financier and philanthropist. Vice chairman is Ted Leonsis, Washington Wizards and Capitals owner and a former AOL executive and venture capitalist. Washington is among six cities believed to be in the running. The others: Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles (host of the 1932 and 1984 Olympics), San Diego and San Francisco. The mayors of New York and Philadelphia announced last month that their cities, initially interested, were bowing out. On Tuesday, the USOC’s 15-member board of directors will meet behind closed doors to pare that list to two or three cities, although USOC Chairman Larry Probst has said the panel does not intend to make its decision public. The USOC hopes to choose the city to nominate by the end of the year. That would give the USOC and city leaders roughly nine months to bolster the bid and fine-tune their strategy before formally submitting it to the International Olympic Committee in September 2015. The IOC is expected to name the 2024 host in 2017, providing the customary seven-year window for preparation.
You know what I was just thinking? How can we take the long, hot, 100% humidity DC summers, and make them even worse? And then wouldn’t you know it, I see this article about them bringing in the Olympics. There is nothing better than muggy Metro rides with smelly foreigners and clueless tourists. Just makes your day so much better. And you know how you can’t drive on 66 at any time of the day, no matter what, without sitting in traffic? Imagine 66 (not to mention 495) with the Olympics in town. Oh boy, that will be a real treat. So no, I’m not overjoyed with the thought of the Olympics coming to DC, but at the same time, I will say it’d be kinda pretty cool to have the entire world’s best athletes right in my back yard, and in the capital of the free world. USA would probably win every single medal. So while it’d be a huge clusterfuck, a ginormous headache to leave the house, and an all around annoyance, I think I just convinced myself that maybe it’d be kinda cool after all.