Everyone saw it (or almost). On Sunday, August 11, during the closing ceremony, Tom Cruise came to steal the Olympic flag. In full flight, the American star roamed the streets of Paris on a motorbike before boarding a military plane. After a transatlantic flight, the actor from the film series Mission impossible triggered his wingsuit to soar in the California sky. Tom Cruise landed like a leaf on Mount Lee in Los Angeles, where he set about fixing the Olympic rings on the famous Hollywood sign. This staging confirms the end of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games and leaves us, for four years, orphaned from a moment of international harmony. In 2028, Los Angeles will be the next to be tasked with bringing the whole world together for two weeks.
The question of image already arises. Paris has been able to count on the wealth of its monuments to give soul to each of its sites. The arrival of the fencers on the balcony of the Grand Palais, their side-by-side descent of the grand staircase of honor – decorated with iron scrolls and green porphyry columns – to reach the track where they crossed swords under the great glass roof, this will not be possible in the City of Angels. But the Californian city is no novice in this area. Twice, in 1932 and 1984, Los Angeles has hosted the Olympics and the city intends to keep this legacy alive.
The Los Angeles Olympic Organizing Committee announced on June 21 – via a press release – that the diving events would take place at the Exposition Park pool, where the competition was held ninety-six years ago. The home of beach volleyball – a discipline that appeared in Santa Monica in the 1920s – the tournament could take place on the beaches bordering the Pacific Ocean, the birthplace of the sport. As for the opening ceremony, it should revive the tradition of stadiums. We will have to wait before seeing the feat of the Seine again. The Los Angeles edition will be held in two stadiums: the emblematic Memorial Coliseum and the SoFi stadium, a few kilometers apart.
Like Paris, some events will be relocated. The softball tournament and canoeing competitions will take place in Oklahoma City, in the Great Plains region, 2,100 kilometers from the host city. According to NBC Los Angelesthese trips are taking place in response to the promise not to build any new sports infrastructure. Another commitment promised by Mayor Karen Bass, during a press conference before the handover: that of “car-free” Games. On August 12, on the tarmac of the Los Angeles airport – returning from Paris where she was taking part in the handover – the mayor declared that her city “had a lot to learn” from the French capital.
Not a great culture of public transport
Los Angeles is a city spread over 70 kilometers and home to about ten million inhabitants. The megalopolis has very slow traffic flow. Karen Bass relies on the public transport network to serve her sites and encourages locals to favor teleworking during the two weeks of the Olympics. Interviewed by NBCJames Moore, professor emeritus at the University of Southern California, says that the city’s residents “don’t use public transportation.” In addition to pointing out that Los Angeles doesn’t have a great culture of public transportation, the industrial and systems engineering specialist points out that the network is “not safe.”
“We are developing our public transportation network,” Bass said. A plan, unveiled in 2019, called 28by28, provides for more than $40 billion in investments to get the network back on track. As its name suggests, it contains 28 projects that include the extension of certain subway lines and the creation of bike paths. But only three projects have been completed and seven are underway. An additional 3,000 buses, mobilized throughout the country, will also arrive for the occasion, according to the American channel NBC.
On the sporting front, Los Angeles – through its organizing committee headed by Casey Wasserman – announced that athletics would take place in the first week and swimming in the second. It was the opposite during the Paris 2024 Olympics. The Californian edition of the Games will be marked by the introduction of new sports. These sports, called “guests”, vary from one edition to another. This year, France introduced breaking, but it will not be on the program for Los Angeles 2028. The American organizing committee chose – on the occasion of the 141st session of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in Bombay last October – to favor typically North American sports such as lacrosse, softball, cricket and flag football – a non-contact variant of American football. The latter, along with squash, will make its very first appearance at the Olympic Games.
The modern pentathlon will also be overhauled. Following the scandal of the German coach who hit a horse during the event taking place in Tokyo in 2021, International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) has chosen to remove equestrian from its programme and replace it with a steeplechase. As for boxing, whose international federation is in dispute with the International Olympic Committee – notably because of refereeing scandals and the federation’s financial management – its fate is still not decided and the discipline could disappear from the programme. Thomas Bach, IOC President, declared on 9 August: “Our position is very clear: the IOC will not organise boxing in Los Angeles without a reliable partner.”