Fresh details of how the LA28 Olympics will come to life in a little over two years’ time have been shared by top decision-makers at the Games.
Niccolò Campriani, vice president of sports on the LA28 Olympic organising committee, and Cesar Hirsch, LA28’s equestrian subject matter expert, shared a progress update at the FEI General Assembly in Hong Kong on 7 November.
Mr Hirsch said LA28 is “on the detail phase” to finalise cross-country plans and that the venue design at Santa Anita “is in its final stages”.
“We’re going to offer a great field of play, great spectator experience,” he said.
“We are actually considering having a fan zone [at Santa Anita] and offering the spectators an experience of a lifetime.”
Most sports venues, including Santa Anita, will be within a 50km radius of the Olympic Village, which will be at the UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) university campus. The pair explained that one of the ideas behind having venues close together is that it will make it easy for fans to discover new sports. Dedicated Olympic traffic lanes will be in place between the village and venues.
“UCLA already hosts 15,000 students every day, and so they are already operating at Olympic Village level,” said Mr Campriani.
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The committee has 30 years of weather data from nearby airport LAX; it will also install a separate monitoring system at the venue and plans to share that data with the FEI and national Olympic committees. Logistics for equine air travel and transfers are also in place.
A full-time equestrian specialist is set to start in January, a test event is in the works for 2027,
“More than anything, you have a team that is going to give the very best until the very end, until the last day of the Paralympics, you can count on us,” said Mr Campriani.
The LA28 Olympic competition timetable was released last week (12 November) – eventing will be the first of the equestrian disciplines at the Games, followed by dressage and ending with showjumping. The equestrian events are scheduled to avoid the heat in the middle of the day.
In other Olympic news, the FEI has already met with organisers of Brisbane 2032 and is planning a visit. The equestrian venue is set to be at Toowoomba.
Mr De Vos also said that the FEI has received requests “from quite a number of national federations” to ask for endurance to be included in the Olympic programme as an additional discipline, and that the FEI will “take it up with the IOC”.
Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.
