PARIS– The Olympics will always have Paris. Next Summer Games game: Los Angeles 2028.
The baton will be handed over from one host city of the third Olympics to another at the closing ceremony on Sunday in Paris, and a lot will be different in four years.
New sports will make their Olympic debutchosen by Los Angeles organizers who are also bringing back others who left the program more than 100 years ago.
Although Paris had the River SeineLA has the Pacific Ocean and its beaches.
The incomparable of Paris historic buildings gave the city a cinematic appearance. The streets of Los Angeles are a living history of film and television.
Here are some things that will be different at the next Summer Olympics.
Flag football, squash and obstacle races. Yes, Obstacle race in the “American Ninja Warrior” styleto replace horses and liven up the modern pentathlon.
The sports invited to the Olympics are typically played around the world. In the modern Olympics, however, they must also be desired by the host city.
Flag football is a good fit for Los Angeles organizers, who last year told IOC members before they voted that it represents “the future and the tip of the spear for the international growth of American football.”
Squash will join tennis and badminton as racquet sports at the Games. Could padel or pickleball one day follow?
Squash has lost in several previous campaigns and, like flag football, is now going from Games to Games with no guarantee of staying at the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
The modern pentathlon has been a staple of the Olympics since 1912, but it often seems close to being replaced. Equestrianism is being replaced as one of the five disciplines requested by the IOC after a horse was abused in Tokyo three years ago.
Obstacle racing arrives in Los Angeles, aiming to make the sport more accessible and relatable.
Lacrosse was last played at the 1908 Olympics, and cricket has not been played since 1900.
Both return in 2028 with the support of Los Angeles organizers and in short, easy-to-view formats; Lacrosse in the six-a-side version, cricket in the aggressive, hard-hitting T20 version that doesn’t require five days per match.
Lacrosse pays respect to the sport’s indigenous roots: “It’s truly authentic to the land we’re on,” LA 2028 President Casey Wasserman said Saturday.
Cricket has been coveted to connect especially with over 1.6 billion people in India and Pakistan.
“They will pay attention to the Olympics like they never have before,” Wasserman said. Cricket will certainly be supported in 2032 by Brisbane, home to one of the sport’s most storied venues.
Baseball and softball have perhaps the most unusual history of the modern Olympics: after the Beijing Games in 2008, back to Tokyo in 2021, back to Paris, back to Los Angeles. Well, Oklahoma City, in the case of softball.
The home ground for women’s softball in 2028 is Devon Park, which hosts the Women’s College World Series every year, about 1,300 miles from the Pacific Ocean.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said he is open to allowing Major League Baseball players participate in the Los Angeles Games, but significant challenges remain. Insurance policies for players like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, whose contracts are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, could be the biggest obstacle.
The next Summer Olympics start two weeks before this one, with an opening ceremony on Friday, July 14.
There is no river in Los Angeles that compares to the parade of Paris athletes in boats on the Seine, although two stadiums will be used instead of one: both SoFi Stadium and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be in play.
This plan means changing the schedule of the modern Summer Olympics.
Track and field is at the Coliseum – as it was in 1932 and 1984 – and is now moving forward a week, replacing swimming as the main anchor sport. This is because So-Fi must be converted into a spectacular temporary swimming venue, with capacity for 38,000 fans. Racing will return for the second full week of action.
The July 30 end date in Los Angeles is the first time the Northern Hemisphere Summer Games will end so early since the 1924 Olympics ended on July 27 in Paris.
The Paris Olympics often looked incredible on screen. Los Angeles practically invented what modern cinema and television look like and is a creative hub for music and fashion.
The message here for Los Angeles is consistent: don’t try to copy Paris.
“Paris is the most beautiful city in the world,” Wasserman said on Saturday. “The 2028 Games will be authentically Los Angeles.”
IOC head of Olympic broadcasting Yiannis Exarchos said LA “cannot remake a city (Paris) with a 500-year history. LA talks about the future, about new frontiers, about technology.”
Road events like marathons and cycling can show “where a lot of the mythology of the 20th century was created, because of Hollywood,” Exarchos said in an interview.
“This is where I’m most intrigued. I think it’s interesting to see how we can recreate the television geography of Los Angeles.”
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