Los Angeles on Clock for 2028 Olympics and Paralympics After IOC Visit
Three-day visit included venue tours, collaboration with Paris 2024 and Brisbane 2032
Posted On: November 15, 2024 By :The International Olympic Committee’s Coordination Commission wrapped up a three-day visit to Los Angeles this week to review selected venues and track the progress of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games in Los Angeles.
The commission visited the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, and the convention center, waterfront and Marine Stadium in Long Beach during its first trip to Southern California in two years. Along with the L.A. Memorial Coliseum, the Rose Bowl will become a three-time Olympic host.
The Coordination Commission and LA28 Organizing Committee, joined by representatives from Brisbane 2032, began the week with a debrief session with leaders from Paris 2024, including its president, Tony Estanguet, who has recently joined the LA28 Coordination Commission to provide a bridge between the two Games.
“The venues are absolutely spectacular,” said Nicole Hoevertsz, a member of the International Olympic Committee and chair of the Coordination Commission for LA28. “I’m going to highlight this every single time that I come to the city that you have no construction to do, that you have world-class venues. They know very well how to organize big events and big sporting events.”
As the calendar turns to 2025, things will begin to ratchet up for the LA28 committee. The Games plan, the venues and competition schedule, medal event program and athlete quota will be finalized. Once those facets are complete, the committee will turn its attention to transportation, security and ticketing plans. In 2026, LA28 will open ticketing and hospitality options to the public, organize the torch relay, create a mascot and more.
“We’re four short years away,” said Casey Wasserman, LA28 chairman and president, who was part of the LA28 group of observers in Paris this past summer.
“We spent most of our time touring the back of the house while the competition was going on,” Wasserman said. “That’s where we will learn a lot and see a lot. Producing an event on the field of play I think we have a pretty good handle on. What makes the Olympics unique is everything else.”
Wasserman does not anticipate any issues working with the incoming administration of President-elect Donald Trump, who was in office in 2017 when Los Angeles won its bid to host and signed federally binding documents for the government to deliver security and transportation for the Games.
“Our conversations with the federal government always involve talking to folks from every party, that’s the nature of the world we live in in this country,” Wasserman said. “One side doesn’t get to dictate everything. It requires cooperation and coordination. We’ve had great success with both Republican and Democratic administrations, and we have no doubt that will continue.”
Another topic of discussion has been the moving of events out of the Southern California area. Softball and canoe slalom have already been moved 1,300 miles east to Oklahoma City.
The following sports for the 2028 Games do not have officially announced venues: 3×3 basketball, baseball, beach volleyball, coastal rowing, cricket, road cycling, flag football, lacrosse sixes, modern pentathlon, mountain bike, shooting, soccer, sport climbing, squash, surfing and volleyball. Organizers have suggested in recent weeks that cricket, in particular, may be played on the East Coast.
“If we can find a place for cricket in Los Angeles, in the region, we will,” Wasserman said. “If not, it’s incumbent upon us to find the best place to produce the best cricket tournament.
“These Games are incredibly focused on LA and Southern California and being responsible and making hosting the Games fit our city and our community as opposed to fitting our city to host the games,” Wasserman added, “which is the mistake that has been made in the past and the promise we have made to the city and the community not to make going forward.”
USTAF Wants 2028 Olympic Trials at Coliseum
USA Track and Field Chief Executive Officer Max Siegel told The Associated Press on Thursday that his preference for the 2028 Olympic Trials is to hold them at the L.A. Coliseum several weeks before the actual Olympic track meet takes place there.
Siegel also said plans are for the meet, which traditionally has been spread over 10 days, to be shortened in 2028.
“It is no secret that our desire is to have something in the West Coast, and preferably in LA,” Siegel said. “We’re going to do everything that we possibly can to try to have our trials” at the Coliseum.
The main concern was whether the Coliseum, which also hosts University of Southern California football games and other events, would be ready for a world-level track meet in time for trials.
Holding trials at the stadium where the Olympics are taking place would fit with U.S. Olympics in the past: In 1996, they were held at Olympic Stadium in Atlanta and in 1984, they were at the Coliseum. USATF has held every Olympic trials since 2008 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
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