By Dan Walsh
Olympic surfing will switch from the awe, and at times terror-inducing, barrels of Teahupo’o to the often criticised home of US surfing in southern California.
The 2028 Los Angeles Games has confirmed out-of-town venues for surfing - to be held at Lower Trestles in San Clemente - and cricket, which returns to the Olympics at the Pomona Fairgrounds, a multipurpose venue which hosts horse racing and the LA County Fair 50 kilometres away from Los Angeles.
While the Fairgrounds will be transformed into a temporary cricket venue for the six-team men’s and women’s T20 events, baseball will take the stage at LA’s iconic Dodger Stadium.
Squash will make its Olympic debut in the Courthouse Square set at Universal Studios Lot in San Fernando Valley, where scenes from Hollywood hits Back to the Future, The Nutty Professor and Bruce Almighty were shot.
Surfing, meanwhile, has been locked in at Lower Trestles, the home of the annual WSL finals until the one-day, winner-takes-all event was this year moved to Fiji.
Holding the Paris 2024 surfing event at Teahupo’o in Tahiti, often regarded as the world’s heaviest waves, proved a masterstroke from game organisers.
Jack Robinson comes unstuck at Teahupo’o during last year’s Olympics.Credit: Getty Images
The feared wave produced one of the great days of competitive surfing when three-metre peaks had silver medallist and Australian Jack Robinson at times fearing he would drown in the heavy swell.
Lower Trestles is as far removed from Teahupo’o as professional surfing gets. The Southern California break is regarded as a high-performance wave, with less intense waves that favour small-wave and aerial specialists.
The WSL has drawn criticism from fans for holding its finals at the wave, instead of a heavier break such as Hawaii’s Pipeline, before moving to Cloudbreak in Fiji for this year’s event, where the fast-breaking barrel over a shallow reef is considered a wave of consequence.
That move puts Australians like Robinson (ninth in the WSL rankings) and women’s world No.3 Molly Picklum at an advantage given their prowess in big waves and barrel-riding.
People surf at Lower Trestles, south of San Clemente, this week.Credit: MediaNews Group via Getty Images
Aside from Stephanie Gilmore’s giant-killing run to claim the 2022 world title, Australians have enjoyed little success at Lower Trestles in recent years.
The San Clemente wave was long-regarded as the standout choice for the LA games though given it is a more reliable break than nearby Huntington Beach.
“Those two finalists are probably the two best, most consistent waves in Southern California,” International Surfing Association President Fernando Aguerre said.
“Trestles is higher quality and also has a higher likelihood of good waves happening.”
A push for Olympic surfing to be held in a wave pool was also championed by Brazilian world champions Gabriel Medina, Filipe Toledo and legend Kelly Slater.
Johanne Defay of France surfs at Trestles in 2022.Credit: MediaNews Group via Getty Images
Slater, whose $30 million Surf Ranch wave pool in California has hosted four WSL events, told Surfer Magazine last year that the Olympics format “should be held in a wave pool with a very specific outlined format to display compulsory manoeuvres and entire rides as a combination” to take luck out of surfing heats.
“Tahiti was great because the waves were great, but we were removed from ‘ground zero’ of the Paris Games,” Aguerre said on Wednesday (AEST).
“Following the amazing success of surfing in Teahupo’o, and in talking to many of the world’s athletes, we knew that any solution for LA had to feature the best performance waves, and there is no doubt that location is Trestles.
“We would like to thank the LA28 leadership team and the International Olympic Committee for their understanding and support of the best conditions for the athletes.”
While Venice Beach (triathlon) and Long Beach (beach volleyball, coastal rowing and marathon swimming) loom as iconic event locations, cricket’s site in Pomona was chosen after options in New York and Oakland were explored.
Holding the T20 tournament on the other side of the country would have lined up better with the lucrative broadcast markets of India. Organisers instead prioritised keeping cricket in LA county and ensuring the world’s best cricketers were a part of the athletes village at the University of California.
A purpose-built cricket venue will be constructed and then disassembled at the Pomona Fairgrounds with a drop-in pitch to be removed once the Olympics are completed.
The squash competition will be held in the legendary Courthouse Square on the back lot of Universal Studios in Hollywood.
Making its Olympic debut in Los Angeles, squash will be played on a four-walled glass court, with the famous movie setting of Courthouse Square serving as a backdrop for the event. Film buffs will recognise it as the fictional town of Hill Valley, in particular, from the Back to the Future movies.
The area was previously known as Mockingbird Square, after featuring in the film To Kill a Mockingbird.