How Los Angeles is prepping up for Olympic Games 2028

It’s curtains to all the sporting action at the Olympics in Paris and the famous five-ringed flag is being handed on to Los Angeles, the host city for the 2028 Olympic Games.

The opening ceremony of the Los Angeles Olympics will take place on July 14, 2028, with the closing ceremony scheduled just over two weeks later, on July 30, 2028. The Paralympic opening ceremony will be on August 15, and the closing event will be on August 27.

This will be the third time the southern Californian city is hosting the Olympics, but the first time the city welcomes the Paralympics. In all, more than 50 Olympic and Paralympic sports will be contested across more than 800 events.

No new venues

“LA is an ambitious city of endless possibilities and the Games will reflect our community. We will provide the perfect backdrop to host the biggest cultural, sporting and entertainment event in the world,” said LA28 Chairperson Casey Wasserman.

The city will use over 80 existing venues to host more than 50 sports being competed in the 2028 Olympics and Paralympics, hosting over 15,000 competing athletes. LA28 will mark the first time that no new venues will be built to host the Olympics.

SoFi stadium will also serve as the host for the opening ceremony. As SoFi will also host swimming and track and field competitions, the organisers will flip the usual order of events, with track and field competing first to allow for time to set up the pool.

The organisers have made it clear that no new, permanent constructions will be needed for the event. They have instead earmarked dozens of existing sites for use, including the home stadium of football team LA Galaxy and the LA Memorial Coliseum, which will host the athletics events as it did in LA's two previous Olympics.

However, some venues will need to be adapted. For example, the SoFi Stadium, as it is currently known, in the suburb of Inglewood, will be converted to host the swimming contests, with a resplendent Olympic pool added.

Meanwhile, student housing at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) will be utilised to set up the athletes' village and training facilities.

‘Car-free’ Games

From a sustainability perspective, it remains to be seen whether LA can pull off the “car-free” Games it pledged after winning the bid in 2017.

Moving thousands of spectators across the sprawling Californian city poses a huge challenge for organisers - with current hopes for car-free transit pinned on a fleet of buses, after plans for a major rail network upgrade fizzled out, according to the Los Angeles Times.

However, LA Mayor Karen Bass and LA28 Chairperson Wasserman said they’re already on the job. Bass was pre-emptive about the traffic, addressing it in her opening remarks at Paris Olympics 2024.

“We’re already working to create jobs by expanding our public transportation system in order for us to have a no-car Games. And that’s a feat for Los Angeles, as we’ve always been in love with our cars. We’re working to ensure that we can build a greener Los Angeles,” she said.

Bass said public transportation will be the only way to access the Los Angeles venues, and her plan to address traffic snarls comprises of both using 3,000 buses that will be borrowed from all over the country and asking businesses to allow their employees to work from home during the 17-day period.

New additions

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 will also witness revival of some disciplines not seen for a while, as well as some new additions.

Leading the list is cricket, an addition which is sure to have cricket enthusiasts in India excited. Cricket will be played at the Olympics for the first time since 1900. In LA, we can expect to see tournaments in T20 - a shortened format that sees both teams limited to bowling and batting for no more than 20 overs each.

Lacrosse is also making a comeback. Lacrosse has not been played at Olympic level for more than a century despite being one of the oldest sports to be played in North America. A new format will be introduced in 2028, which will see teams of six using their lacrosse sticks to fire a ball into a goal.

Like cricket, squash is also due to make its first appearance at an Olympics after years of campaigning from aficionados. Baseball/softball will make a return after having been omitted in Paris in 2024.

Flag football will also make its Olympic debut. This is a non-contact version of gridiron (American) football, played on a smaller pitch with smaller teams, in which tackles are made by removing a flag from an opponent. It is the fastest-growing variant of the sport in the UK, according to the British American Football Association.

Not the first time

When Los Angeles hosted the Olympics last time in 1984, the Games were boycotted by a Cold War-era Soviet Union over commercialisation and security issues.

Great Britain won five gold medals. Among its champions were decathlete Daley Thompson, javelin thrower Tessa Sanderson, a young rower named Steve Redgrave, and 1,500m runner Seb Coe. However, the undisputed sporting superstar of Los Angeles 1984 was home talent Carl Lewis, who won gold in the men's 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100m relay events. The US dominated the medals tally with 174 medals, 83 of which were gold. Among a number of historic moments, the 1984 Games saw the first women's Olympic marathon.

The 1932 Olympics in Los Angeles took place under the cloud of the Great Depression. The Games were significantly shorter than previous editions, and saw fewer competitors. However, the crowds are reported to have been huge - including a turnout of approximately 1 lakh people at the opening ceremony. The year also marked the debut of the now-familiar medals podium.