The 2028 Olympic Games will be held from 14 to 30 July, marking the third time the US West Coast city hosts the games.
After the Paris 2024 Olympics ended in a glitzy ceremony on Sunday, now it’s Los Angeles’ turn to take on the Olympic torch.
The US West Coast megalopolis’ Mayor Karen Bass took over the Olympic flag at the Paris closing ceremony before handing it off to a Hollywood superstar, Tom Cruise, who, in a pre-recorded trek via motorcycle, plane and parachute, kicked off the four-year countdown.
After the 1932 and 1984 Olympics, 2028 will mark the third time Los Angeles will host the Summer Games, a feat shared with just two other cities: London and Paris.
Mayor Bass, who is set to return to LA on Monday, has promised that the Olympics will change the Californian city of almost 4 million for the better.
“As we’ve seen here in Paris, the Olympics are an opportunity to make transformative change,” Bass said before the closing ceremony.
“We want our games to be modern games, youthful, and full of the optimism that Southern California brings to the world and the globe,” Janet Evans, four-time Olympic gold medalist in swimming and chief athlete officer for the LA 2028 organising committee, said in Paris.
Major public transportation plans afoot
Amid a stadium-and-arena boom, LA plans to improve on existing structures rather than build new ones, which Evans refers to as “no-build games”.
After Paris’ innovative opening ceremony on the Seine River, the 2028 host city wants to open the games with a traditional, stadium-based approach at SoFi Stadium in neighbouring Inglewood and the century-old Memorial Coliseum in the city centre.
A notoriously hard to traverse city may seem like an odd fit for the Olympics, but the authorities in LA have pledged all Olympic venues will be reachable by public transportation — and public transportation alone.
Bass said she plans to emulate the tactics of Tom Bradley, the mayor of LA in 1984 when changes to the city’s traffic were praised by some as being better than in non-Olympic times.
Further plans include asking local businesses to stagger workforce hours to reduce the number of cars on the road and allow work from home during the 17-day games.
Landing the Olympics under then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2017 gave the city an unusually long lead time for planning.
While it’s no Paris Metro, LA has built a subway since its last Olympics, with lines running past major venues.
In 2018, the city planned an ambitious slate of 28 bus and rail projects to transform public transit.
Some were scrapped, but others moved forward, including the extension of a subway line to connect downtown Los Angeles with UCLA, the planned home of the Olympic Village.
Another high-profile project is the Inglewood People Mover, an automated, three-stop rail line past major Olympic venues.
It initially received a commitment of $1 billion (€920 million) in federal funding, but opposition to the plans led to a 20% reduction.
According to the Los Angeles Times, whether the line will be completed in time for the Olympics remains unclear.
“The biggest challenge is not waiting until 2028, but really taking the opportunity between now and 2028 to help Angelenos and visitors alike reimagine the transportation network as something that will be their first choice,” said Stephanie Wiggins, CEO of LA’s Metro company.
Will the City of Angels follow the City of Light?
But following in Paris’ footsteps in 2028 promises to be a challenge.
Paris made spectacular use of its cityscape for its first games in 100 years, with the Eiffel Tower and other iconic monuments becoming Olympic stars in their own right as they served as backdrops and venues for medal-winning feats.
Prior to the next Summer Games, LA will host a FIFA World Cup event, the US Women’s Open in 2026, and another Super Bowl in 2027.
The city’s hotel industry has continued to see growth, adding 9,000 new hotel rooms in the past four years, with more to come over the next four.
LA 2028 Olympics organisers are banking on ticket sales, sponsorships, payments from the International Olympic Committee, and other revenue streams to cover the games’ $6.9bn (€6.3bn) budget.
The committee has brought in just over €920m toward its goal of €2bn in domestic corporate sponsorships.
