The organizing committee for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics announced on Friday a reversal of the calendar between athletics and swimming and several major changes to competition venues.
Traditionally placed in the second part of the program, athletics will take place from the start of the Games, instead of swimming, postponed to the second week, LA28 announced in a press release.
The athletics events remain scheduled in the Coliseum, as during the 1932 and 1984 Games, while swimming moves to the gigantic American football stadium in Inglewood (SoFi Stadium), and will become “the largest swimming stadium of Olympic history” with 38,000 places announced.
Gymnastics will take place in the Downtown Arena, the city’s business center, home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings of ice hockey (Crypto.com Arena), while basketball will be played throughout the city. new Los Angeles Clippers venue, in Inglewood, which will host its first matches in October when the NBA resumes.
Faced with the absence of a canoe slalom pool and a sufficiently large softball stadium, the organizers relocated these two sports to Oklahoma City, 2,100 km east of Los Angeles. Equestrian sports are moving to Temecula, about a hundred kilometers southeast of the City of Angels.
Fewer temporary installations
All these changes allow the organization “to assign more sports to existing stadiums, to use fewer temporary facilities and thus make significant savings”, explains the LA28 organizing committee in a press release, placing it in line with the IOC Agenda 2020+5 which recommends the use of facilities outside the host city to increase the “sustainable” nature of the Games.
The BMX, skateboarding and archery events will take place in Encino (north of Los Angeles). Diving will take place at the Fairgrounds as in 1932, and Long Beach (south) will host artistic swimming and other sports yet to be announced.
ats, afp
