PARIS (AP) — The Olympics will always have Paris. Next up for the Summer Games: Los Angeles 2028.
The baton will be handed from one third-time Olympic host city to another at the closing ceremony Sunday in Paris, and much will be different in four years’ time.
New sports will make their Olympic debuts, picked by organizers in LA who also are bringing back others that left the program more than 100 years ago.
While Paris had the Seine River, LA has the Pacific Ocean and its beaches.
Paris’ unmatched historic buildings gave the city a cinematic look. LA’s streets are a living history of film and television.
Here’s a look at some things that will be different about the next Summer Games.
Flag football, squash and obstacle racing. Yes, “American Ninja Warrior”-style obstacle racing, to replace the horses and pep up modern pentathlon.
Sports that get invited into the Olympics typically are played across the world. In the modern Olympics, however, they also must be wanted by the host city.
Flag football is a good fit for Los Angeles organizers, who last year told IOC members before they voted that it represents “the future and the tip of the spear for American football’s international growth.”
Squash will join tennis and badminton as racket sports at the Games. Could padel or pickleball one day follow?
Squash lost out in several previous campaigns and, like flag football, now goes Games to Games with no guarantee of staying for the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.
Modern pentathlon has been an Olympics staple since 1912 but often has seemed close to being ousted. Equestrian is being replaced as one of the five disciplines as requested by the IOC after a horse was abused in Tokyo three years ago.
In comes obstacle racing in LA, aiming to make the sport more accessible and relatable.
Lacrosse last was played at the Olympics in 1908, cricket not since 1900.
Both return in 2028 with eager support from Los Angeles organizers and in viewer-friendly short formats; Lacrosse in a six-a-side version, cricket in the aggressive, hard-hitting T20 version that does not require five days per match.
Lacrosse pays respect to the Indigenous roots of the sport: “It is truly authentic to the land we are on,” LA 2028 chairman Casey Wasserman said Saturday.
Cricket has been coveted to connect especially with the more than 1.6 billion people in India and Pakistan.
“They are going to be paying attention to the Olympics like they never have,” Wasserman said. Cricket surely will be kept in 2032 by Brisbane, which is home to one of the sport’s most storied venues.
Baseball and softball have perhaps the most unusual modern Olympics story: out after the 2008 Beijing Games, back in at Tokyo in 2021, out in Paris, back in LA. Well, Oklahoma City, in softball’s case.
Home to women’s softball in 2028 is Devon Park that stages the Women’s College World Series each year, about 1,300 miles (2,100 kilometers) from the Pacific Ocean.
Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred has said he's open to allowing Major League Baseball players to participate in the LA Games, but significant challenges remain. Insurance policies for players like Shohei Ohtani and Aaron Judge, whose contracts are worth hundreds of millions of dollars, may be the biggest sticking point.
The next Summer Games start two weeks earlier than this one, with an opening ceremony on Friday, July 14.
There’s no river in LA to match Paris’ athlete parade on boats on the Seine, though it will use two stadiums instead of one: both SoFi Stadium and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum will be in play.
That plan means flipping the schedule of the modern Summer Games.
Track and field is at the Coliseum — as it was in 1932 and 1984 — and now moves up a week, replacing swimming as the front-loaded anchor sport. That is because So-Fi must be converted into a spectacular temporary venue for swimming with seats for 38,000 fans. Races will move back into the second full week of action.
The July 30 end date in Los Angeles is the first time a northern hemisphere Summer Games will finish so early since the 1924 Olympics closed July 27 in Paris.
The Paris Olympics often looked incredible on screen. Los Angeles practically invented the look of modern cinema and television and is a creative hub of music and fashion.
The message here to LA is consistently: Don't try to copy Paris.
“Paris is the most beautiful city in the world,” Wasserman said Saturday. “The 2028 Games will be authentically Los Angeles.”
The IOC's head of Olympic broadcasting, Yiannis Exarchos, said LA “cannot redo a city (Paris) with a history of 500 years. LA speaks about the future, about new frontiers, about technology."
Road events such as marathons and cycling can show “where a big part of the mythology of the 20th century has been created, because of Hollywood,” Exarchos said in an interview.
“This is where I am more intrigued. I find interesting to see how we can recreate the television geography of LA.”
AP Summer Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games
Norway's Anders Berntsen Mol serves against Spain at Eiffel Tower Stadium in a quarterfinal beach volleyball match at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2024, in Paris, France. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — A female student was killed and another student was wounded Wednesday in a shooting in a Nashville high school cafeteria, police said.
The 17-year-old shooter, who was also a student at Antioch High School, later shot and killed himself with a handgun, Metro Nashville Police spokesperson Don Aaron said during a news conference. Police identified him as Solomon Henderson.
Police Chief John Drake said the shooter “confronted” a 16-year-old female student in the cafeteria and opened fire, killing her. Police identified her as Josselin Corea Escalante. Drake said police are looking into a motive and whether the students who were shot were targeted.
The male student who was wounded suffered a graze, and was treated and released from the hospital, Drake said. Another student was taken to a hospital for treatment of a facial injury that happened during a fall, Aaron said.
There were two school resource officers in the building when the shooting happened around 11 a.m. CDT, Aaron said. They were not in the immediate vicinity of the cafeteria and by the time they got down there the shooting was over and the gunman had killed himself, Aaron said.
The school has about 2,000 students and is located in Antioch, a neighborhood about 10 miles (16 kilometers) southeast of downtown Nashville.
At a family safety center close to a hospital, officials were helping shocked parents to reunite with their children.
Dajuan Bernard was waiting at a Mapco service station to reunite with his son, a 10th grader, who was being held in the auditorium with other students on Wednesday afternoon. He first heard of the shooting from his son who “was a little startled,” Bernard said. His son was upstairs from the cafeteria but said he heard the gunfire.
“He was OK and let me know that everything was OK,” Bernard said.
“This world is so crazy, it could happen anywhere," he said. "We’ve just got to protect the kids, and raise the kids right to prevent them from even doing this. That’s the hardest part.”
Fonda Abner, whose granddaughter is a student at the school, said Antioch High does not have metal detectors that would alert officials to the presence of a gun. She said her granddaughter had called her a couple of times but that she only heard commotion and thought it was a pocket dial. They spoke briefly before being cut off.
“It’s nerve-wracking waiting out here,” Abner said.
Adrienne Battle, superintendent of Nashville schools, said public schools have implemented a “range of safety measures," including partnerships with police for school resource officers, security cameras with weapon-detection software, shatter-resistant film for glass, and security vestibules that are a barrier between outside visitors and the main entrance.
“Unfortunately, these measures were not enough to stop this tragedy,” Battle said.
She noted that there are questions about whether stationary metal detectors should be considered.
“While past research has shown they have had limitations and unintended consequences, we will continue to explore emerging technologies and strategies to strengthen school safety,” Battle said.
Wednesday’s school shooting comes nearly two years after a shooter opened fire at a separate Nashville private elementary school and killed six people, including three children.
The tragedy prompted a monthslong effort among hundreds of community organizers, families, protesters and many more pleading with lawmakers to consider passing gun control measures in response to the shooting.
However, in a Republican-dominant state, GOP lawmakers refused to do so. With the Republican supermajority intact after November’s election, it’s unlikely attitudes have changed enough to consider any meaningful bills that would address gun control.
Instead, lawmakers have been more open to adding more security to schools — including passing a bill last year that would allow some teachers and staff to carry concealed handguns on public school grounds, and bar parents and other teachers from knowing who was armed.
Antioch has endured other prominent shootings in recent years. A 2017 fatal shooting at Burnette Chapel Church of Christ killed one woman and wounded seven people. And in 2018, a shooter killed four people at a Waffle House.
Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi in Nashville and Adrian Sainz in Memphis, Tennessee, contributed.
Metro Nashville Police Chief John Drake talks to media following a shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
School buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Students wait to get off a bus at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
A students and a family member walk from the Antioch High School after a shooting in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
People wait as school buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
School buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Families wait as school buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An ambulance leaves the Antioch High School following a shooting in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An ambulance leaves the Antioch High School following a shooting in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Families wait a school buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
Dasia Pleitez prays as she waits for her daughter at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
School bus arrives at a unification site following a shooting at at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
School buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
A school bus arrives at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
People wait as school buses arrive at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
An ambulance leaves the Antioch High School following a shooting in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)
A school bus arrives at a unification site following a shooting at the Antioch High School in Nashville, Tenn., Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV)