The fastest women in the world will open the Olympic athletics program at the Los Angeles 2028 Games. The women’s 100m final will be run on Saturday, July 15, 2028, the first day of track and field competition at the LA Memorial Coliseum, with the heats, semifinals and the final all contested on the same day. The men’s 100m final follows a day later, on July 16.
It is an unprecedented format. World Athletics confirmed that all three rounds of the women’s 100m, including the final, will take place on day one, while the men keep a traditional two-day structure, with preliminaries and the first round on July 15 and the semifinals and final on the evening of July 16. A preliminary round for universality athletes opens the morning session on July 15. The opening session will also feature the men’s 10,000m final and the women’s shot put final.
“This is Olympic innovation at its best,” said Shana Ferguson, LA28 Chief of Sport and Games Delivery Officer. “By collaborating with World Athletics and listening directly to their athlete community, we’ve created something unprecedented with the women’s 100m. We are thrilled to showcase the fastest women in the world on day one.”
The schedule, published by World Athletics and LA28, makes athletics the first sport to span the entire Olympic period, from day one through the final day of the Games. In total, athletics will be contested across 13 days, from July 15 to July 30, 2028. In-stadium competition at the Coliseum runs for the first 10 days, July 15 to 24, before the focus shifts to the road events on July 27, 29 and 30, closing with the men’s marathon on the final day of the Games.
World Athletics president Sebastian Coe said the program was built to “start with a bang as our women’s sprinters take centre stage on day one and then the men’s sprinters on day two.” The schedule was also crafted to allow the maximum number of potential doubles, such as the 100m and 200m, and the mixed 4x100m relay will make its Olympic debut. World and Olympic gold medallist Sha’Carri Richardson said “track and field is having its moment,” while Dina Asher-Smith called it “an honour for the women’s 100m to open the LA Games,” exactly 100 years after women first competed in Olympic track and field.
The LA28 Olympic Games will take place from July 14 to 30, 2028, with more than 10,000 athletes from about 200 nations competing in 35 sports. It will be the third time Los Angeles hosts the Olympic Games, after 1932 and 1984. At this stage only the event allocation per session has been finalized; World Athletics and LA28 will finalize the detailed timetable over the next two and a half years, and the schedule remains subject to change.
Source: World Athletics; LA28.
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