Strategic Move to Challenge USA Dominance in Swimming
Swimming Australia is taking a bold step by securing accommodation outside the athletes’ village for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics. This decision marks a departure from tradition and is part of a broader strategy aimed at challenging the United States’ dominance in swimming on their home soil.
As part of this initiative, Swimming Australia will travel to Los Angeles for two days in August following the Pan Pacific Championships. This trip, referred to as an “LA immersion,” is designed to give athletes a firsthand experience of the environment they will compete in during the Games.
The move comes in response to dissatisfaction with the athlete village experience during the Paris 2024 Olympics. Many swimmers reported issues with transportation, food quality, and the comfort of the beds. These concerns have influenced the decision to explore alternative accommodations that may better support high-performance training and competition.
The two-day trip will include a one-night stay at a hotel, which has not been named for security reasons, as well as visits to the athletes’ village and SoFi Stadium. The stadium, valued at AUD$7.8 billion, is set to be transformed into a venue for Olympic swimming, creating what is expected to be the most electric atmosphere in the history of the sport.
Australian Olympic Committee president Ian Chesterman and chef de mission Anna Meares are expected to join Swimming Australia during the trip. This collaboration highlights the importance of the event in preparing the team for the challenges ahead.
The Pan Pacific Championships, featuring teams from Australia, the USA, Canada, and Japan, will begin 10 days after the conclusion of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games. Swimming Australia’s staging camp for the Pan Pacs will be held at the University of California, San Diego, which will also serve as their base for the LA Olympics.
“So effectively we’re going to be celebrating the Pan Pacs and the Comm Games but we’re going to get that immersion experience [in LA],” said Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor. “When we come home from that trip in August, everybody will be two years out and we know where we’re going, we know where we’re staging, we stayed there, trained in the pool we’re going to train in, we’ve gone and stayed in our accommodation, we’ve seen where the village is going to be and we’ve been in SoFi Stadium, to really get everybody to understand and have a good feeling about that.”
Approximately 80% of the team selected for the 2028 Olympics will participate in the two-day trip. This allows athletes to spend the next two years visualizing how their time during the Games will unfold.
Australia’s swimmers have previously expressed concerns about the conditions in the Olympic village. Shayna Jack shared a photo on Instagram showing athletes sitting on the floor of a bus on their way to the pool, highlighting the long and uncomfortable journeys. Ariarne Titmus went further, stating that the athletes were “living in filth” after the Games.
Despite these challenges, Australia has not beaten the USA in an Olympic swimming medal tally since 1956. Since then, the USA has consistently topped the swimming medal table, except for Moscow 1980, when it boycotted the Games, and Seoul 1988, when East Germany’s state-sponsored doping program dominated the count.
In Paris, Australia came close to surpassing the US in the pool, but the Americans secured gold in the final event, claiming their eighth gold of the Games and pushing ahead of the Dolphins.
“We talk about how can we be our best and measuring up against them, as they’re the standard bearers,” said Taylor. “For us, it’s about: how can we better what we’ve done previously and what are the things we can do? Those are the kind of processes we look to. What can we control? What we can control is our preparation and how we go about it.”
