With the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics fast approaching, it’s not too early for Southern Californians to start planning for 2028.
With just over four years until Los Angeles hosts the 2028 Summer Olympics, LA28 announced Friday that it will use venues currently under construction to host some of its biggest events. Without any major construction work, the committee announced some potentially shocking venues for some of the top sports.
Aquatics often takes center stage at the Summer Olympics, with American athletes reaching the podium and generating significant national interest. With that in mind, aquatics requires a world-class venue, and there is no better fit than SoFi Stadium.
Inglewood, home of the NFL’s Los Angeles Rams and Chargers, will host the swim meet, and the stadium’s seating arrangement will be reconfigured to reduce capacity to 38,000 for the event, down from the usual 70,000 for football games and up to 100,000 for concerts, according to LA28.
A rendering of SoFi Stadium, the swimming venue for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympics. (LA28)
Even after renovation, it will be the largest swimming venue in Olympic history.
Another big surprise was the second host city for the Los Angeles Games: Due to a lack of suitable venues in Southern California, the softball and canoe slalom events were held in Oklahoma City, more than 1,000 miles away.
Both events will use existing facilities in Oklahoma: Los Angeles’ largest softball venue can only accommodate 2,000 people, according to LA28, and there are no Olympic-level canoe slalom venues in the Western U.S.
Plans for the opening and closing ceremonies remain unchanged, with portions of both events to be held at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and SoFi Stadium.
Rendering of the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympic venues. (LA28)
The Coliseum will also host track and field events, Crypto.com Arena will host gymnastics events and the new Intuit Dome in Inglewood, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, will host a basketball tournament.
Additional locations also announced:
Olympic Artistic Swimming (Long Beach) Olympic and Paralympic Equestrian (Temecula) Olympic Diving (Exposition Park) Olympic Archery (Sepulveda Basin) Olympic BMX Racing and Freestyle (Sepulveda Basin) Olympic Skateboarding (Sepulveda Basin)
More locations will be announced in the future, according to LA28.