Five-ring circus: The Thread of the XXXIII Olympiad

And Tulsa is the Paris of Oklahoma.

 

Elite paddling competitions take place in artificial waterways. The Ocoee River in 1996 was the only time the Olympics have contested the event on a natural river.

The original bid showed a course at Sepulveda Dam in the San Fernando Valley, but apparently they were looking at shifting to OKC as far back as 2022.

 

They spread the early rounds of soccer around on 1984 as well, Stanford, Harvard and the Naval Academy as well as the Rose Bowl.

 

Looks like they always do that, in whatever country they're in.

 

It's being renovated. They played at UC Irvine this season but will return to Dedeaux in 2025.

USC makes out like a bandit with Big Ten travel. Doesn't sponsor softball, gymnastics or men's soccer, all sports UCLA has and will have to travel halfway or completely across the country to play conference games. UCLA will probably limit its gymnastics travel to the Big Ten meet and try to stay regional with everything else.

 

I haven't done any recent research on this, and I was surprised by the info that was posted today about the venue changes. USC was renovating Dedeaux Field for swimming, then they were going to change it back for baseball after the Games. The photo below was from a story 8 years ago. The pool on the left is the one they used for the '84 Olympics. The pools on the right are on the baseball field. I guess that has all changed. This season, the Trojans played their home games at The Great Park in Irvine, UC Irvine and Loyola Marymount. They practiced at 6 a.m. at El Camino College.
I also thought the old 1932 Olympic Swim Stadium in Exposition Park next to the Coliseum was taken out when they built the new soccer stadium for LAFC. But they might have built a new swimming pool for the local residents.
There were stories about USC adding softball but it hasn't happened. There is no room on campus for a softball stadium, but the stories said there was a park a few blocks from campus that USC could have renovated into a suitable stadium, and the locals could use it at other times.
Most of this stuff was before the Clippers built their new arena and SoFi was done.

 

I had a temp job doing security at a Stanford dorm that served as the Stanford village. Seems like the East Germans were always coming back from somewhere just before sunrise. That and there was a week-long cheer camp in an adjacent dorm, "Hey crowd, how do you feel?" 24-7.

 

I don’t either. Traditionally, the marathon is the final event of the Games, and that moment when the leader enters the stadium always feels to me like a perfect climax/wrapup.

 

That doesn't necessarily have to change. Even if they couldn't open the Coliseum for that, the marathon hasn't finished in the stadium since 2008.

 

There are three Class A baseball stadiums within 90 minutes of downtown LA — Rancho Cucamonga, San Bernardino and Lake Elsinore. All seat around 6,000, I believe. I wonder why those couldn’t be used for softball with some modifications.