LOS ANGELES (AP) — Nadia Comaneci, Apolo Ohno, Bart Conner and Cullen Jones were among the more than 300 Olympic and Paralympic athletes who gathered Tuesday under the peristyle at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, where the Summer Games will open in 2028.
In an effort to promote Wednesday's registration launch for tickets to the Los Angeles Games, the athletes representing 28 different Olympics dating to 1960 joined Janet Evans in a short countdown
to the lighting of the Olympic Cauldron against a clear blue winter sky.
“LA is committed to delivering an athlete-centered games and that can only happen if athletes are actually at the center of our planning,” said Evans, the Olympic champion swimmer who is chief athlete officer for the LA28 organizing committee.
The get-together felt like a homecoming to Ohno, the most decorated U.S. Winter Olympian ever with 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, the retired swimmer 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.”
Nearby, Comaneci twirled for photographers under the peristyle. The Romanian gymnast became a teenage superstar at the 1976 Montreal Games, where she earned the first perfect 10.0 mark in Olympic history. She and Conner will mark their 30th wedding anniversary in April.
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.
