The 2028 Los Angeles Games will feature the first Olympic torch relay to visit all 50 states, starting in Atlanta, the most recent U.S. host of the Summer Games, in spring 2028.
As is tradition, the Olympic Flame will be lit in Olympia, Greece — the birthplace of the Games — before coming to the U.S.
The full torch relay route and the process to nominate torchbearers will be announced in 2027.
The relay will pass “through iconic and internationally renowned landmarks, stopping at major cultural and sporting events and hosting festival celebrations in select cities nationwide,” according to a press release.
The LA Paralympic torch relay will happen after the Olympics in August 2028 with the Paralympic Flame originating in Stoke Mandeville, England, the birthplace of the Paralympic Movement.
The torch relay’s presenting partners are Coca-Cola, JPMorganChase, Allstate and Xfinity.
For the 1996 Atlanta Games, the Olympic torch relay began at the LA Memorial Coliseum after the flame arrived from Greece. It visited 42 states and Washington, D.C., with 12,467 torchbearers covering more than 16,000 miles.
Muhammad Ali lit the cauldron at the Opening Ceremony. His widow, Lonnie Ali, was on hand for Tuesday’s torch relay announcement in Atlanta. She reflected on Ali’s historic moment with the flame.
“Afterward, back at the hotel, he sat, holding that torch, and he told me that he thought people had cried -- because people were visibly crying, he had met President Clinton, and President Clinton had tears coming down his face — and he thought they were crying because they felt sorry for him because he was in full display with Parkinson’s disease,” she said. “I had to convince him that, no, that wasn’t it at all. They were crying because they were so happy to see you out there being courageous, holding that flame high. And they saw that, and he would later call it one of his great moments of his life.”
For the 1984 Los Angeles Games, the relay spanned 33 states with 3,636 torchbearers over more than 9,000 miles.
Rafer Johnson, the 1960 decathlon gold medalist, lit the cauldron inside the LA Memorial Coliseum, which will also co-host the 2028 Opening Ceremony with SoFi Stadium (which at the 2028 Olympics will be known as 2028 Stadium). Johnson was also the first torchbearer for the U.S. portion of the Atlanta 1996 torch relay.
The LA Olympics open July 14, 2028, with medal competition from July 15-30. They will include an Olympic record 353 medal events.
The LA Paralympics open Aug. 15, 2028, with competition through Aug. 27 and 560 medal events.
