These steps are cost-saving measures to avoid having to build new facilities, which local organizers have undertaken in keeping with the spirit of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics – which did only minimal new construction – and in line with the demands of the International Olympic Committee to hold a Games Their games. More affordable. Los Angeles does not have a water sports facility nor does it have a swimming pool with a stadium large enough to host Olympic events.
“There is no existing place [for white-water events] “In California or frankly the western United States,” LA 28 President and President Casey Wasserman said Friday in a video call announcing the new locations.
Oklahoma City has what Wasserman described as a “first-class venue” for paddling in a facility built along the Oklahoma River adjacent to downtown. He added that the city’s Devon Park, host of the Women’s College World Series, has undergone extensive renovations, making it what he called “the best softball field in the country.”
Oklahoma City’s move is not unprecedented. Surfing competition for the Olympic Games will begin in Paris this summer tahiti, Several mountain competitions will be held at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games Places Four and five hours from Milan. The International Olympic Committee has even discussed moving sliding sports out of Italy if a sliding center, under construction near Cortina, is not completed in time.
LA 28 originally planned to host the swimming events in a temporary stadium built inside USC’s baseball stadium on the edge of downtown Los Angeles, but USC wants to renovate the stadium, forcing games organizers to find a different location. After looking around the Los Angeles area, Wasserman said, “We had a lot of fun with the idea of taking it to SoFi.”
A few years ago, such a move would have been unthinkable, but organizers of this summer’s Paris Olympics are putting swimming in a temporary pool in a two-story indoor venue. Rugby field. USA Swimming hosts its Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. Wasserman, who will attend the trials this weekend, said his staff is working with the crews that built the temporary pool in Indianapolis to get ideas.
But the SoFi swim situation has created another logistical problem since the stadium is also supposed to be the main host for the opening ceremonies, sharing duties with the Los Angeles Coliseum near downtown Los Angeles. Typically, swimming takes place during the first week of the Olympics, but with SoFi needing to transform quickly, Wasserman said swimming will change with track and field.
He added that the SoFi pool will be built long before the Olympics start and will be covered during the opening ceremonies.
Wasserman also said boaters and softball players will be able to attend the opening or closing ceremonies so they don’t feel left out of the events in Los Angeles while they are in Oklahoma.