PARIS — With the cauldron here now extinguished, all summer eyes can look four years down the freeway to Los Angeles, when a handful of old friends drop by as others bid adieu.
Bats are coming back just as boxing faces a possible Olympics knockout.
Lacrosse, cricket, baseball and softball — by way of Oklahoma City — are set to make their Olympic returns to L.A. 2028.
Flag football and squash are set to make first-time Olympic appearances in a little less than four years.
But breaking likely won't make the cut for Los Angeles, and boxing may not, either.
Breaking, the New York-rooted 1980s dance form, appeared to be well-received here in Paris but wasn't invited to the Los Angeles party.
Husband and wife Eric Quinlan and Alison Palaia thoroughly enjoyed watching the action in Paris last week and were dismayed about the sport’s apparent Olympic death.
“We’re pretty bummed out about it, especially because breaking was invented in the U.S, in New York City,” Palaia said.
But the couple, who grew up just outside New York City in the 1980s, are looking forward to a possible 2032 return in Brisbane, Australia.
“We’ve watched a lot of breaking over the past year, and that final was everything we hoped for,” said Palaia, 48, an artist. “I love the way the athletes get in each other’s faces in a theatrical way, but then after they finished they were hugging and laughing. You can tell they all know each other.”
And boxing, one of the Olympics’ oldest and most enduring events, could be on the chopping block because of disarray in the sport's international leadership.
The Russian-controlled International Boxing Association has essentially been isolated from the world sports community, so a new world governing body will have to coalesce in coming months to make sure the sweet science will be practiced in Los Angeles.
The fledgling organization World Boxing hopes to be that new international body that can gain enough support from national boxing federations to fill the IBA void.
If Paris 2024 was the swan song for boxing, it went out with a bang as capacity crowds filled the famed tennis grounds of Roland Garros Stadium for several nights of exciting medal bouts.
“The energy, passion and emotions seen during this tournament have shown that this is the absolute pinnacle for boxers and it would be a tragedy if Paris 2024 turned out to be the last time ever that boxing appeared on the Olympic programme," World Boxing President Boris Van Der Vorst said in a statement Sunday.
“It would be devastating for everyone connected with the sport at all levels and in every part of the world."
What to expect from the 2028 Olympics
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass said the 2028 Olympics will be a “no-car Games,” which seems to be an incredible boast coming from a city and a region that still don't have direct rail service to the airport.
Swimming in 2028 figures to be one of the Games' show-stopping events, to be held at SoFi Stadium, the NFL stadium in nearby Inglewood, which isn’t within walking distance of rail service.
Bass said a force of 3,000 buses and an appeal for work-from-home schedules for the duration of the Games will make transportation more manageable.
She pointed out that predictions of traffic Armageddon in 1984, when the Olympics were last in Los Angeles, never materialized.
“Angelenos were terrified that we were going to have terrible, terrible traffic, and we were shocked that we didn’t,” Bass said told The Associated Press. “But I will tell you, in 1984, we didn’t have any of the technology that we do today. We learned in Covid that you can work remotely.”
Still, Olympics super fan Vivianne Robinson, of Santa Monica, says she's apprehensive about what's going to happen on Southern California freeways in four summers.
She said she plans to limit her attendance to events on the west side of Los Angeles.
"I'm worried," she said in Paris outside a water polo match. "That's why I'm not going to get tickets to anything far away in L.A. Everything is far away, and I hate driving, and I really don't take public transport that much."
