Los Angeles: Australian swimmer Lani Pallister and her coach, Dean Boxall, crane their necks to look at a 110-metre infinity screen – longer than a football field – that weighs about one million kilograms and hangs 37 metres above the ground.
The pair are standing inside SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, trying to comprehend how one of the world’s most technologically advanced sporting venues – usually reserved for NFL games and concerts featuring the likes of Taylor Swift and Ed Sheeran – will be transformed into the swimming arena for the 2028 Olympics.
More than 40,000 spectators, potentially including US President Donald Trump, will pack into one half of the futuristic arena for nine days of competition in what promises to be the grandest swimming spectacle in Olympic history.
The $7 billion venue opened in 2020 and has already hosted the 2022 Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup matches this year.
Sienna Toohey, at 17 the youngest member of the Australian team, grew up training at her local pool in Albury. The difference between the two venues could not have been more stark.
“The atmosphere will be insane and very US-sided,” Toohey said. “Honestly, it’s bigger than what I thought it was going to be.”
Fresh from their Commonwealth Games success in Glasgow and Pan Pacific Championships glory down the road in Irvine, the Australians were given an exclusive, all-access tour of the stadium on Monday (Tuesday AEST) before flying home.
“I just said to Dean, ‘It’s not super-overwhelming’,” Pallister said. “I thought it would be bigger and, ‘Oh my god, it’s in your face’.”
Boxall disagrees.
“It’s really big. It looks like the Colosseum in Rome the way they have structured it,” Boxall said.
“If Lani was swimming like her mother [Janelle] was back in the ’80s, she never would have this opportunity. Brisbane’s not going to be like this in 2032 … but this has to happen again. Swimming’s going to be front and centre as one of the global sports of 2028. It feels like a rock concert and you’re here to perform.”
Head coach Rohan Taylor said the venue size was “overwhelming”.
Swimming legend Ian Thorpe was in attendance, along with Australian Olympic Committee officials including president Ian Chesterman, chief executive Mark Arbib and chef de mission Anna Meares.
“I’ve never walked out of a venue as awestruck as I was out of SoFi,” Meares said. “It is so impressive.”
The noise inside the stadium promises to be unlike anything swimming has experienced, but the Dolphins are aiming to silence the home crowd by winning gold medal after gold medal and, ultimately, beat the Americans on the medal tally. Boxall refers to it simply as the “heist”.
Sam Short, Meg Harris and Zac Stubblety-Cook were taken inside the locker room usually occupied by the Los Angeles Rams and given a tour of the facilities they will use when they race here in 2028.
SoFi will host the opening ceremony on July 14, 2028, before a temporary 50-metre competition pool is installed on the stadium floor for use eight days later.
Organisers have flipped the traditional Olympic schedule, with swimming – normally held in week one – shifted to the back end of the Games and athletics to take centre stage for the first 10 days.
The final individual event of the swimming meeting could be the best of them all: Pallister against the greatest female swimmer in history and home favourite Katie Ledecky in the women’s 800m freestyle.
Ledecky, who was dealt a first international defeat over 800m by Pallister at the Pan Pacs last week, is aiming to become the first swimmer in history – and the second Olympian – to win the same individual event at five consecutive Olympics.
It is Boxall’s job to help Pallister spoil the American party. The man who coached Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan to Olympic glory has ramped up the heat on Ledecky, insisting the pressure sits firmly on her shoulders.
“Just think about what [Ledecky] has to do,” Boxall said. “Everyone will be watching on TV. This will be completely packed. I believe Trump will be here. It’ll be massive and that’s got to be on her [mind]. They’ll come to see Katie but we’ve got an Aussie underdog trying to take it out. It could be one of the great steals.
“[Ledecky] will definitely have pressure and we are 100 per cent the underdog. It doesn’t matter what happens over the next 18 months because we have not won an Olympic medal or gold. This girl has won four and is going for five golds. It’s unprecedented … on home turf with about 40,000 Americans and 500 foreigners.”
Pallister appears calm about the prospect, saying her breakthrough victory over Ledecky at Pan Pacs will do her confidence the world of good.
“Standing here is unbelievable,” Pallister said. “But once you’ve also had success in an event, like winning the 800 at Pan Pacs, it’s not daunting coming into trying to beat Katie on home turf. If you walk into an Olympics and you’ve never won an event and you’re trying to beat the greatest of all time, that’s a much harder task than repeating a performance you’ve already had. I want to go back to training and start getting into it … ”
Boxall butts in.
“Really? Come and join me in Thailand,” Boxall says, referring to an upcoming training camp he is hosting.
Pallister continues. “Dean’s done it before with Arnie. To be able to add to that legacy and cement Dean as one of the greatest coaches of all time … it’d be pretty unbelievable.”
Boxall, who rarely grants interviews, is asked what he made of Pallister’s outstanding week at Pan Pacs in which she won three individual gold medals – in the 200m, 400m and 800m freestyle – plus silver in the 1500m freestyle, 2.53 seconds behind Ledecky.
“I was uber-proud,” Boxall says.
Pallister asks her coach if it had been a perfect four days.
“No way. The 400 was not perfect,” Boxall says, prompting a laugh from Pallister. “Then you fell off pace in the 800. You’ve just got to keep Lani a little grounded.”
Boxall knows, however, the value of Pallister walking into SoFi Stadium without the Ledecky hoodoo hanging over her head.
“Can you imagine if you don’t have a great performance at Pan Pacs and you’re a little bit negative?” Boxall said. “You walk into this environment and you bring it. We’re coming here with a little bit of confidence. Lani swam unbelievable and so did all of Australia.
“It’s extremely valuable that we’re here. I absolutely concur with Lani. We are standing here, and I am not overwhelmed by it.
“I was so impressed with Australia here. It shows you once again that underdog mentality Australia has. We didn’t have Mollie, Flynn Southam, Kyle Chalmers … and people stood up. We had no fear. That puts us in good stead for LA. We are not afraid.”
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Tom Decent is the chief sports writer for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via X or email.From our partners
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