Over 300 Olympic and Paralympic athletes, including Nadia Comaneci, Apolo Ohno, Bart Conner, and Cullen Jones, gathered Tuesday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, the site for the 2028 Summer Games opening.
To promote Wednesday’s ticket registration launch for the Los Angeles Games, athletes from 28 Olympics since 1960 joined Janet Evans in a countdown to light the Olympic Cauldron under a clear blue winter sky.
Janet Evans, the Olympic champion swimmer and chief athlete officer for the LA28 organising committee, said: “LA is committed to delivering an athlete-centered games and that can only happen if athletes are actually at the center of our planning.”
The gathering felt like a homecoming to Ohno, the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian ever. He holds eight short track speedskating medals.
“I walked in and I literally saw like 50 of my friends that I’d grown up in the Olympic training center with for many years,” he said.
“I haven’t seen some of these people for 10 years or more.”
The athletes met with LA28 officials beforehand, with several offering suggestions on how to improve the athlete experience.
“We have the athlete voice in the areas that really need to be heard,” said Jones, who joined the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee last summer as associate director of athlete marketing.
“I’m really excited to see what LA28 looks like.”
Conner noted that with the majority of venues already built in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City, which will host softball and canoe slalom, organizers can focus on the competitors.
The three-time Olympic gymnast capped his career at the 1984 Los Angeles Games.
“The athletes know that they’re the center of every decision,” he said.
“It’s not just like, ‘let’s call the athletes and see what they think about it.’ The athletes are already in all the board meetings. I understood today that there’s more athletes involved in leadership here in the Olympic organizing committee than there are at the IOC.”
Registration opens at 10 a.m. EST on Wednesday at Tickets.LA28.org. It’s the first step for a chance to secure a time slot to buy tickets starting in April.
After registering, fans will be randomly assigned time slots to buy tickets throughout future ticket releases.
Individual tickets, hospitality packages including tickets and packages involving travel and accommodations will also go on sale later this year.
