DC 2024: Leaders Named for Summer Olympics Bid

D.C. business leaders Russ Ramsey and Ted Leonsis have been named to lead the Washington, D.C., effort to host the 2024 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games, using venues in Maryland, Virginia and the district.

A nonprofit exploratory committee launched in August, announcing DC's Olympic hopes. Plans call for the group to raise $3 million to $5 million in the next two years as it vies for the approval of the U.S. Olympic Committee, according to the Washington Business Journal.

Ramsey is chairman and CEO of Ramsey Asset Management, an investment group, and a trustee for George Washington University. Leonsis is a former AOL executive turned sports executive with majority interests in the Washington Capitals, Washington Wizards, Washington Mystics and the Verizon Center.

Ramsey, will be chairman of the Olympics committee, while Leonsis will serve as the vice chairman, says the Baltimore Business Journal. 

"With more state-of-the-art sports infrastructure in a 40-mile radius than any other U.S. city, thousands of hotels and lodging options, and a vast and expanding transportation system, the Greater Washington region is one of the best and most qualified in the world to host an event of this magnitude...," DC 2024's President Bob Sweeney said in August.

Other cities considering a 2024 Summer Games bid are Atlanta, Boston, Kansas City, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle, the Washington Business Journal reports. 

Washington, D.C., has never held the games before, and the last Summer Olympics in the United States was in Atlanta in 1996.

The U.S. Olympic Committee will select which American city will go into the running in 2015. Then that city will compete with other nations' top choices before the International Olympic Committee, which would pick the 2024 host city in 2017.

DC competed to be the U.S. Olympic Committee selection for the 2012 Olympics, which were ultimately held in London.