Olympic committees of the Americas receive key guidelines in Santo Domingo for LA28 preparations
National Olympic committees from countries across the Americas gathered in Santo Domingo to align the operational preparations of their delegations two years before the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. The forum dedicated to the preparations of national Olympic committees was held in two linguistically separate phases: on 17 and 18 August 2026 for committees from Spanish-speaking countries and on 20 and 21 August for representatives of English-speaking countries. According to the Association of National Olympic Committees, ANOC, the aim of the meeting was to enable the committees to turn the latest information from the LA28 Organising Committee into concrete plans for athletes, coaching staff and administrative personnel. The topic was not only sporting preparation, but an entire range of practical issues that determine how a delegation functions at the world's largest multisport event. In Santo Domingo, discussions therefore covered accommodation, transport, Olympic villages, accreditations, tickets, delegation registration and the sports schedule, namely areas in which decisions must be made long before athletes arrive in Los Angeles.
Two sessions for committees from across the continent
ANOC states that the programme was divided into two sessions in order to facilitate communication and the exchange of experiences among national Olympic committees from different linguistic regions. The first group consisted of committees from Spanish-speaking countries, which participated on 17 and 18 August, while the second group, with representatives of committees from English-speaking countries, worked on 20 and 21 August. This organisation allowed for more detailed discussions of national needs and operational models, instead of reducing the forum to a one-way presentation of general information. According to ANOC, participants presented their own experiences and case studies from different areas of preparation for the Olympic Games, giving the programme a practical component. The exchange of experiences is particularly important at a stage when the host organising committee is gradually finalising more and more details, while national committees must incorporate those decisions into their own budgets, staffing plans and logistics systems.
The forum was opened by the President of the Dominican Republic Olympic Committee, Garibaldy Bautista, with welcoming remarks from Joanne Zipser-Graves, Deputy Director of Olympic Solidarity, and Jimena Saldaña, Secretary General of Panam Sports. According to ANOC, the opening messages emphasised the importance of providing national Olympic committees with information, tools and support in a timely manner. ANOC was represented at the forum by Andres Santi, Senior Projects and Events Manager, who worked with representatives of the International Olympic Committee and Panam Sports and participated in coordinating the exchange of knowledge. The organisational framework thus connected the host Olympic committee, the continental sports organisation, the IOC and ANOC with the LA28 team. For national committees, this meant that in one place they could receive answers from institutions that will have different but interconnected roles before and during the Games.
From the master plan to delegation registration
LA28 experts presented the latest information in Santo Domingo on the Games master plan, sports programme, Olympic villages, accommodation, transport, tickets, accreditations and the delegation registration process. According to ANOC, these areas were at the centre of the operational part of the forum because they directly affect the everyday movement and work of athletes and their support teams. For a national Olympic committee, preparing a delegation involves much more than sending a list of competitors: arrivals and departures must be planned in advance, official personnel must be allocated, accreditation categories must be coordinated, transport and accommodation needs must be anticipated, and every member of the delegation must be properly registered. Any change in a competition venue or schedule can affect training, nutrition, medical support and transfer arrangements. Early access to operational information therefore reduces the risk of key decisions being made only in the final months before the Games.
The particular emphasis on the Olympic villages is also important because LA28 has confirmed that the Olympic and Paralympic Village will be located on the campus of the University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA. Organisers present this model as part of a broader plan to rely on existing infrastructure rather than constructing a large number of entirely new facilities solely for the Games. For delegations, this raises a number of practical questions: allocation of accommodation capacity, access to training facilities, medical and food services, movement between the village and competition venues, and organisation of the work of staff who are not permanently housed with the athletes. In such a system, national committees need to know precisely where individual sports will be held and how long transfers will take. Santo Domingo therefore served as an early point of coordination between the host's overall plan and the needs of each individual delegation.
LA28 will be geographically dispersed Games
Operational planning becomes even more important because of the geographical distribution of competitions. According to the official LA28 plan, organisers intend to make extensive use of existing stadiums, arenas and sports complexes in Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California, while some competitions will also be held outside the immediate city area. The football tournament, for example, will include matches in several U.S. cities, while the finals are scheduled for the Rose Bowl stadium in Pasadena. Such a model allows existing capacity to be used, but creates a more complex logistics map for national committees, with different locations, time zones and potentially separate accommodation for parts of the delegation. That is precisely why transport and accommodation are among the topics that must be developed well before athletes are finally entered.
The organisers' official plan also provides for the use of the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, a historic venue associated with the 1932 and 1984 Games, while the opening ceremony on 14 July 2028 will be split between the Coliseum and the stadium in Inglewood. The Games will run until 30 July, when the closing ceremony is scheduled. LA28 has also made an unusual switch in the traditional order of the two largest sports on the programme: athletics will be held in the first week and swimming in the second. Such changes are not merely a programming curiosity for spectators. For delegations, they affect plans for athletes' arrivals, the length of stay of individual groups, the use of physiotherapy and medical teams, and the schedules of chefs de mission and other staff.
A broader sports programme also changes team logistics
The Los Angeles 2028 programme will be more extensive than that of Paris 2024. According to data published in July 2026 by the Italian National Olympic Committee, LA28 is expected to feature 36 sports and 353 medal events. The IOC had previously approved the inclusion of five additional sports proposed by the organisers: baseball/softball, T20 cricket, flag football, Sixes lacrosse and squash. Flag football and squash will be on the Olympic programme for the first time, while baseball/softball, cricket and lacrosse are returning after previous Olympic appearances in different periods. For national committees with realistic qualification prospects in those sports, this means the possibility of larger or structurally different delegations, with additional coaching staffs, equipment and specific requirements.
The framework previously approved by the IOC provided for a basic quota of 10,500 athletes for the initial sports programme, with additional places for the five sports proposed by LA28. Although the final number of members of an individual national delegation will not be known until the qualification processes are complete, committees already have to develop scenarios for different team sizes. This is particularly relevant to countries that may qualify in team sports, because a single qualification can suddenly increase the number of athletes and accompanying staff by dozens of people. Planning is therefore based on several variants, from a conservative estimate of the number of qualified athletes to a broader scenario in which the national team secures places in a larger number of disciplines. The forum in Santo Domingo provided national committees with a framework for such estimates based on the latest information from the host.
Accreditations and registration are not an administrative formality
One of the topics of the forum was also the Delegation Registration Process, the final registration procedure through which the compositions of national Olympic delegations and the operational data required by the organiser are confirmed. This process comes relatively late in the preparation cycle, but its successful implementation depends on data that are collected and verified much earlier. National committees must coordinate data on athletes, coaches, doctors, physiotherapists, mission leadership and other categories of personnel, while taking into account the rules that determine access to individual zones. During the Games, accreditation is both an identification document and an access instrument, so an incorrectly planned category can affect where an individual team member is able to work. That is why operational deadlines and technical requirements are worked out at forums like these before final registrations begin.
The same applies to tickets intended for different needs of the Olympic family and to the public sales system, although these are separate operational streams. The broader context shows how great the pressure on capacity will be: on 21 August, LA28 announced that more than six million Olympic tickets had been sold in the first two phases of public sales and that the next opportunity for the general public would be in 2027, on a first-come, first-served basis. Organisers stated that the vast majority of the allocation offered up to that point had been sold. For national committees, high demand is not only an indication of public interest, but also a reminder that accommodation, transport and other services in competition areas will face increased pressure during the Games. Information about official transport systems and available capacity is therefore particularly important in early planning.
ANOC presented support programmes for national committees
In addition to the information provided by LA28, the IOC and Panam Sports, ANOC presented its own programmes intended for national Olympic committees. According to the organisation, Andres Santi spoke about the ANOC-PEAK Uniform programme, the Digital Content Hub and the ANOC.tv studio. The aim of these initiatives is to provide practical support to committees and help them increase the visibility of athletes and their own digital content before and during the Games. Such support can be particularly important for smaller committees with more modest communications, production or commercial resources. In the modern Olympic environment, the work of a delegation is no longer limited to sporting and logistical components, but also includes content management, communication with audiences, partners and the media, and protection of the national team's identity.
Panam Sports and IOC representatives also, according to ANOC, informed participants about programmes and forms of support available to national Olympic committees. The forum therefore had a dual function: to convey technical information from the host and at the same time connect committees with resources of the Olympic movement that can help them implement their plans. For committees with smaller administrative teams, early access to standardised tools and shared procedures can reduce costs and the number of operational errors. For larger delegations, the advantage is that they receive in a timely manner the data required for the complex planning of hundreds of athletes and staff members. In both cases, the objective remains the same: to enable athletes to deal as little as possible with organisational problems during the Games and to focus as much as possible on competition.
Preparations are now moving from general plans to concrete operations
The two-year period before the Olympic Games is no longer merely a phase of strategic planning. As schedules, competition locations, accommodation models and sales systems are confirmed, national Olympic committees must gradually finalise their own procedures, deadlines and responsibilities. This includes appointing mission leadership, communicating with national sports federations, estimating the number of potential qualified athletes, preparing backup logistics scenarios and planning medical, security and communications needs. Every piece of information received from the organisers can affect a series of other decisions, from the arrival date of an individual sports group to the required number of vehicles or support staff. Forums such as the one in Santo Domingo are therefore important before the final phase of qualification and registration begins.
After the meeting, ANOC assessed that the forum had provided national Olympic committees from the Americas with an opportunity for coordination, knowledge exchange and the conversion of the latest LA28 information into their own preparation strategies, with the athlete experience at the centre of planning. This is also the main message of the meeting: the success of a delegation at the Games depends not only on results in competition, but also on how well the infrastructure behind the athletes is organised. Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympic Games for the third time in 2028, after 1932 and 1984, but the modern scale of competition, number of locations and expanded sports programme will place different demands on national committees than in previous editions. Santo Domingo was therefore not merely an informational stop, but part of a long operational process that will continue as LA28 releases new details. By the opening ceremony on 14 July 2028, each of those details will have to be turned into a precise plan for the arrival, stay and participation of every delegation.
Sources:
- ANOC - report from the Americas LA28 NOC Games Preparation Forum in Santo Domingo, participants and programme topics (link)
- LA28 - official dates of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (link)
- LA28 - current venue and schedule plan for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games (link)
- LA28 - official information on the location of the Olympic and Paralympic Village at UCLA (link)
- International Olympic Committee - confirmation of five additional sports for the LA28 Olympic programme (link)
- Italian National Olympic Committee - overview of the LA28 programme with 36 sports and 353 medal events (link)
- LA28 - information on more than six million Olympic tickets sold and announcement of the next public sale in 2027 (link)