All three rounds of the women’s 100m will take place on the opening day of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics as part of a move to open the Games with “one of the most electrifying events in sport”, World Athletics has said.
The competition schedule for the Games was released on Thursday, with athletics events spanning the entire event for the first time in history.
Sprinters normally run a maximum of two races per day at a major championships. The men’s 100m finalists will have a more typical schedule, with the winner crowned on day two.
Organisers said that day one would feature the most women’s finals on a single day in Olympic history, including the women’s triathlon final, women’s shot put and women’s rugby sevens gold medal events.
World Athletics said it consulted athletes before making the surprising switch. The Games’ chief athlete officer, former gold medal-winning swimmer Janet Evans, said: “To be the pre-eminent event on the first night of competition in the historic LA Memorial Coliseum – when we presented it to the athletes that way, there was excitement.
“A majority of athletes said to me: ‘Just let me know. Let me know early, and I’ll start training to run three 100s in one day.’”
Britain’s former world silver medallist Dina Asher-Smith said: “It will be an honour for the women’s 100m to open the LA Games. It’s such an exciting opportunity – celebrating enduring legacy, strength and global power of women’s sprinting, exactly 100 years on from the first time women competed in Olympic Track and Field.”
2023 world champion Sha’Carri Richardson said the decision proved that “track and field is having its moment”. “The road to LA28 is about to be something special, especially for the women’s sprints,” she added.
The move has not proved universally popular, however, with three-time NCAA All-American Katelyn Hutchison writing on social media: “Which one of you goofballs thought this was a good idea”.
“Winning time of the women’s 100m in 2028 finna be 11.02,” she wrote in a later comment, suggesting the physical strain of running three times in one day would lead to slower times.
The women’s 100m record is 10.49, set by Florence Griffith Joyner in 1959. Reigning 100m world champion Melissa Jefferson-Wooden ran it in 10.61, the fourth-quickest time in history, in Tokyo this year.
World Athletics said the schedule had been “carefully crafted” to maximise the number of potential doubles, such as the 100m and 200m, 800m and 1500m, and 5,000m and 10,000m.
One star who is unlikely to double up will be Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, who holds the world record over 400m hurdles but took a year away from the discipline to run the 400m flat this year, setting a new championship record at the World Championships in Tokyo this summer. Both the 400m hurdles semi-finals and 400m final are scheduled for the same day in LA.
Usually the Summer Olympics open with swimming events but as they will take place in the same venue as the opening ceremony, the SoFi Stadium, they have been moved to the second week to allow more time to set up the pool.
Five swimming gold medals are up for grabs on the final day. The marathon events will also close the Games; the men’s marathon will take place on the final day as per tradition.
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