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SUGGESTED COVERAGE: 2028 Olympics events schedule released
The Games are scheduled to run from the opening ceremony on July 14, 2028, to the closing ceremony on July 30, 2028 (Day 16), with the first medal awarded in triathlon in Venice on Day 1.
LOS ANGELES - The LA28 organizing committee has released the initial competition schedule for the 2028 Paralympic Games, marking 1,000 days until the opening ceremony.
Paralympics Games schedule
What we know:
The 2028 Paralympic Games will be held in Los Angeles, beginning with the opening ceremony on Tuesday, August 15, 2028, at SoFi Stadium.
The event will feature 560 medal events across 23 sports.
Like the Olympics, some competitions will begin before the official opening ceremony:
- August 13: Rugby games
- August 14: Boccia games
The first medal events will be held on August 16 in five sports: track and field, wheelchair fencing, shooting, equestrian, and cycling.
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The closing ceremony will be held on August 27 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
A first for LA
Local perspective:
This will be the first time the Paralympics have been held in Los Angeles under the rule that went into effect in 1988 requiring the games to be held in the same city and venues as the Olympic Games.
When the Olympics were last held in Los Angeles in 1984, the Paralympics were split between Nassau County in New York, where events for wheelchair and ambulatory athletes with cerebral palsy, amputees or athletes who are blind or visually impaired athletes were held, and Stoke Mandeville, England, where events for wheelchair athletes with spinal cord injuries were held.
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The Paralympics were first held in Rome in 1960.
Sports you can watch
Big picture view:
The games will feature the debut of a new sport, climbing, which will have its finals on August 24.
Two sports on the Paralympic program do not have an equivalent in the Olympic program:
Boccia is similar to curling, with players throwing or rolling leather balls as close as they can to a small ball called a jack.
Goalball is played exclusively by athletes who are blind or vision impaired. It was invented in 1946 to help rehabilitate veterans who lost their sight during World War II. It is played on an indoor court the same size as a volleyball court, with each three-player team wearing eyeshades to ensure fairness. The ball has bells embedded inside, which allows athletes to hear where it is.
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The final day of the games, August 27, will feature finals in blind soccer, track and field, badminton, climbing, powerlifting, sitting volleyball, and wheelchair basketball.
What's next:
A more detailed schedule will be released in 2026.
The schedule was developed in "close collaboration" with each sport's international federation and Olympic broadcasting services with "the support" of the International Paralympic Committee, according to LA 28.
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LA28 officials noted that all events and sessions are subject to change leading up to the 2028 games and until the end of the international competition.
The Source: This competition schedule is directly sourced from the LA28 Organizing Committee, which released the initial preview 1,000 days before the games. The schedule itself was developed in collaboration with each sport's international federation, the Olympic Broadcasting Services, and the International Paralympic Committee, giving it official, expert-vetted authority. Further details and the full competition schedule are available directly on the LA28.org website.