San Fernando Valley gets three sports as 2028 games stretch from Long Beach to Temecula
With the Paris Olympics less than a week away, venues for the 2028 Los Angeles Summer Olympic Games are approaching the finish line.
Some cities in the past considered the games a bother, a traffic magnet, or a criminal threat, but the 2028 Olympics four years away have been welcomed by Los Angeles, as with many other Southern California cities designated to host Olympic events.
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Most venues are confirmed but others have not been finalized. On the LA28 site, “coming soon” is listed on the venues for several sports.
Inglewood will host three major events: the opening ceremonies and swimming at SoFi Stadium, and basketball at the soon-to-be-completed Intuit Dome.
Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. reflected on the change from holding the opening ceremonies at the Los Angeles Coliseum to holding the ceremonies at SoFi, including the entrance of the torch relay and the lighting of the perpetual flame.
“That will be an iconic, historical event and Inglewood will be enshrined in the legacy of the Olympic games,” Butts said on Thursday, July 18.
He said he was surprised the SoFi stadium would get the Opening Ceremonies, and then more recently LA28 — the committee organizing the 2028 games — named SoFi as the swimming venue.
A pool will be installed beneath the football field surface at the stadium used by the Los Angeles Rams and Los Angeles Chargers and that seats 70,000 for football. During the Olympics it will accommodate 38,000 spectators, the most for an Olympic swimming venue.
SoFi was built with flexibility in mind, Butts said, and “it was designed so the lower levels are convertible.”
LA28 wrote in an emailed response on July 19, “LA28 has the additional complexity of hosting the Opening Ceremony on top of the pool which will take some additional time to add that structural overlay. But the pool, and training pool, will be ready in time for the Swimming competition.”
Like Inglewood, other areas will host Olympic sports for the first time.
The Sepulveda Basin, a 2,000-acre flood-control channel and a recreational and wildlife area in the San Fernando Valley near the 405 and 101 freeways will be redesigned to host three sports: skateboarding (street and park), BMX Cycling (freestyle and racing) and archery.
“LA28 has always committed to hosting events in the Valley, and we’re proud to assign these youthful, high energy and precision sports that will generate an incredible atmosphere at the venues and a lot of excitement for the community and fans from around the world,” LA28 said in an email.
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