7 thoughts on the 2028 Olympic schedule: Will it be changed so that Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone can double?

The 2028 Los Angeles Olympics are still nearly three years away, but organizers started the hype machine early by revealing the schedule for the entire games on Wednesday. You can find the full track & field schedule here.

Here are LetsRun.com’s biggest takeaways after spending a few hours perusing the schedule.

It’s stunning that the IOC/World Athletics didn’t make the 400/400 hurdles double possible for Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone

What is the defining image of track & field at the last Olympics held in the United States? It is 28-year-old American star Michael Johnson completing an unprecedented 400/200 double at Atlanta 1996. And he did it in style, sporting golden spikes and running 19.32 in the 200, a world record that would stand for 12 years.

We assumed that the #1 thing the IOC and World Athletics would do when setting up the 2028 Olympic track & field schedule would be to make another historic double possible for America’s biggest track & field star, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone (SML) – who, by the way, will be 28 in 2028. But it appears the IOC/WA didn’t consider the SML double – shame on them.

Kevin Morris photo

SML has won global gold in both the 400 and 400 hurdles, but she’s never done both at the same World Championships/Olympics. It seems like a no-brainer to make that double possible for 2028, but the schedule came out today and that double is basically impossible. To do it, SML would have to run the 400 and hurdles on the same day twice (July 18 and July 20) and would even have to double in the same session (on July 20, when the 400 final and 400 hurdle semis are both in the same session).

McLaughlin-Levrone’s coach Bobby Kersee is furious with the schedule, telling the Orange County Register that it is “the world’s loss” that SML cannot pursue either a 400/400H double or one of her back-up options, the 400H/200. 

“She could do [the 400/400H],” Kersee told the OC Register on Wednesday. “She’s proven she’s capable. Yeah, she’s capable of doing it. So why not give her the opportunity?

“We’re a sport fighting for attention. So why do you make this decision? This shows the weakness of our sport. We’ve got the stars but we don’t get any help from the top.”

At least we’ve learned from Kersee’s comments that SML wants to double in LA — which is a good thing for track fans. SML has run five global championships as a pro and has never doubled up in individual events – she has always done one individual event plus the 4×400 relay. She has been asked many times about whether she would like to double at a major championship and has never seemed all that thrilled by the idea.

“There’s been a lot of talk of doubles,” McLaughlin-Levrone told the AP when asked about it at this year’s World Championships. “Is it possible is one thing, do I want to do it is another.”

The good news is that there is precedent for World Athletics changing the schedule for its biggest stars. They flipped the 1996 schedule to help Johnson double after he requested it, and did the same for Allyson Felix in the 200/400 in 2016 (though she wound up missing the team in the 200). Within the sport, SML is certainly a star on par with those names. If she went to USATF and World Athletics and requested that they change the schedule so that she can do the 400/400H in LA, there is a good chance they would listen.

Hell, maybe this is what the IOC and WA wanted all along. Maybe they did consider the 400/400H double when making the schedule but wanted to ramp up the drama by forcing SML to specifically request the change. SML never likes to share her plans very far in advance of major events, so this could be a brilliant marketing ploy. If SML requests a schedule change now, it would force her to declare her intentions years in advance, building up the hype and anticipation.

History says that we won’t learn SML’s plans for LA28 for another few years. But if she wants to do the 400/400H, she will need to tip her hand early and make it happen herself.

Plenty of other doubles are easily doable

The rest of the schedule is great for doubles. The 100/200, 800/1500, 1500/5000, and 5000/10,000 doubles are all easily doable with no overlap between the events.

“The schedule [was] carefully crafted to allow the maximum number of potential doubles – such as the 100m & 200m, 200m & 400m (plus relays), 800m & 1500m, 1500m & 5000m, 5000m & 10,000m, and long jump & triple jump,” World Athletics said in a statement Wednesday.

The men’s 200/400 is very difficult as both semifinals take place within the same session (the night of July 20). The women’s 200/400 is more doable; it would require racing five days in a row (400 semi, 200 prelim, 400 final, 200 semi, 200 final), but never more than once per day.

The women’s 100m runners will star on the opening day of the Olympics when they race all three rounds of the 100m

Traditionally, swimming and gymnastics take center stage during the first week of the Olympics, with track & field beginning during the second week. In 2028, however, track will be held during the first week as organizers need time to install the pool at SoFi Stadium after it hosts the opening ceremony on July 14.

The first full day of the Games is Saturday, July 15, and LA28 organizers want to end the day with a marquee event. And the women’s 100m final – potentially featuring American stars Melissa Jefferson-Wooden and Sha’Carri Richardson – should be one of the marquee events of the entire Olympics. As a result, for the first time in history, it will conclude the track competition on day 1.

But to have the final on the first night means that the athletes must run all three rounds of the 100 on the same day – prelims in the morning, semis and final in the evening. Women have never run three rounds in the same day in the Olympic 100 meters. The men haven’t done it since 1900.

There has been some bellyaching online about this, but we love the change and don’t think asking them to run three rounds in a single day is a big deal at all.

At the World Indoor Championships, 60-meter runners have been running the prelims, semis, and final on the same day for years. And in the World Athletics press release announcing the news, Shana Ferguson, LA28 Chief of Sport and Games Delivery Officer, said that they collaborated with World Athletics and “listened directly to their athlete community” when making this decision.

World Athletics also told Athletics Weekly that “the overwhelming majority of athletes who were consulted said they would prefer to do all rounds in one day…if they have two to three years to plan and prepare for this, they can and will do it.”

For the record, the men’s 100 will follow the traditional format, with prelims on Saturday, July 15, and the semis and final on the night of Sunday, July 16.

Morning finals are back

World Athletics introduced morning finals in select events at the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo, presumably to make those sessions a bit more exciting. There were no morning finals in Paris last year, and the morning sessions were still packed and passionate, but WA has brought them back for 2028. In Los Angeles, the men’s and women’s triple jump and steeplechase finals will all be held during morning sessions.

70% of the evening sessions will finish at 7 p.m. local time or earlier

The exact time of each event has yet to be finalized, but LA28 has listed start and end times for each session, and none of the evening sessions will end after 8:20 p.m. local time, with seven of the 10 sessions ending at 7 p.m. or earlier. This makes sense to maximize the American TV audience, putting as many of the finals in primetime on the East Coast as possible.

It’s not as convenient for European fans, however. 7 p.m. in LA is 3 a.m. in London and 4 a.m. in Paris. If you’re a European track fan planning on watching the Olympics live, get ready for some late nights.

The repechage rounds are coming back

The repechage rounds drew mixed reviews in Paris last year. On the LetsRun Track Talk Podcast, 2016 Olympic champion Matthew Centrowitz likened the repechage to being sent to the gulag, and World Athletics president Sebastian Coe has admitted that the idea was basically forced on WA by the IOC. Of the 73 athletes who participated in the repechage round in Paris, only two wound up making the final. That’s 2.7% – and one of those repechage athletes, Freddie Crittenden, was in the repechage by choice as he wanted to give an injury more time to heal.

World Athletics didn’t use repechage rounds at the 2025 World Championships in Tokyo, but they will be in use again at LA28 in the 100/110 hurdles, 200, 400, 800, and 1500.

LRC Repechage at the 2024 Olympics: How Many Repechage Athletes Actually Made the Final?

This is a jumbo-sized Olympic schedule

Usually the Olympic track & field schedule features nine days of in-stadium competition and the marathon on the tenth and final day of the Olympics. In 2028, there will be a new event (mixed 4×100 relay) and the overall schedule is longer. There are 10 days of in-stadium competition, running from July 15-24, and seven of those 10 days feature both morning and evening sessions (the last three days are evenings only). Then there’s a break before the road events at the end of the Games – the race walks on July 27, the women’s marathon on July 29, and the men’s marathon on July 30.

So if someone like Sifan Hassan wants to triple, that will be easier than ever as the marathon will be a week after the track action concludes. And if Jakob Ingebrigtsen wants to attempt the 1500/5000/10000 triple, that also is doable: MB: 1500, 5000m, 10000m triple possible for the Men in LA 2028.

More sessions means more opportunities for fans to attend in-person and more inventory for the broadcasters, but the tradeoff is that some sessions could be pretty thin as a result. You can find the full track & field schedule here.