LA 2024 expands legal team in wake of global sports scandals

With international sport suffering through multiple scandals, and Olympic leaders calling for better governance, the LA 2024 bid committee has added two more attorneys to its staff.

Tanja Olano and Anna Schmitz will join Brian Nelson, the committee’s general counsel and chief compliance officer, it was announced Wednesday.

“Brian, Tanja and Anna are ideal attorneys to lead LA 2024 as we navigate the wide and varied range of legal and compliance matters that any candidate city wishing to host the Games has to face,” Chief Executive Gene Sykes said in a statement.

The staff additions were made a day after International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach published an op-ed on latimes.com about cleaning up sports in the wake of scandals involving, among others, international soccer and track and the Russian track federation.

LA 2024 is trying to bring the Games back to Los Angeles for a third time. Bid leaders recently announced they had raised $30 million in private funds for a campaign that will last almost two years and ultimately could cost $50 million or more.

The IOC is scheduled to select a host city in 2017.