Janet Evans On Her Role In The 2028 Olympics In Los Angeles

This article originally appeared in the 2024 Olympic Preview edition of SwimSwam Magazine, courtesy of author Riley Overend. Subscribe to the SwimSwam Magazine here.

Janet Evans was just a 17-year-old freshman at Stanford University when she got a call from Billy Payne, who was leading Atlanta’s bid for the 1996 Olympics.

“I want you to speak on behalf of Atlanta as we bid for this,” Payne told Evans.

Fresh off winning three gold medals at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, Evans flew out to Atlanta to show International Olympic Committee (IOC) officials around the city during the bid process. She later traveled to Tokyo for the annual IOC Session in 1990, when Atlanta — against all odds — was chosen to host the 1996 Summer Games over Athens.

Evans culminated her Olympic career in Atlanta as one of the most decorated American swimmers of all time. Nicknamed “Miss Perpetual Motion,” she won five Olympic medals (four gold), captured 45 national titles, and set seven world records in the pool. Her global standards were ahead of their time as her world records from the 1980s in the 400 free, 800 free, and 1500 free weren’t broken until 2006, 2008, and 2007, respectively.

Outside the water, though, Evans couldn’t help but notice how athletes’ voices were being ignored.

“I think that it’s easy to forget that athletes are the most important stakeholders in the Olympic and Paralympic Games,” Evans said.

So when former Los Angeles mayor Eric Garcetti and LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman approached Evans in 2015 about assisting with their Olympic bid, she needed some assurances before jumping at the opportunity.

“When I took the job, that’s what I told Casey Wasserman and Mayor Garcetti: ‘I won’t take this job unless we put athletes at the heart of what we’re doing, and every decision we make that involves athletes will be passed through my team,’” Evans said. “That’s how my role evolved here at LA28, because Casey gave me the bandwidth to put athletes first. I think every decision we make here at LA28 is very athlete centered. We have more Olympians working here at LA28 than the IOC does in Lausanne.”

A Fullerton native who graduated from USC after attending Stanford and Texas, Evans brought plenty of Olympic bid experience to the Los Angeles team. In addition to her work behind the scenes of the successful 1996 Atlanta proposal, she also helped with New York’s 2012 bid that lost to London.

Evans sought feedback from athletes while preparing L.A.’s presentation to the IOC, including at the 2016 U.S. Olympic Swimming Trials. She asked athletes about their Olympic and Paralympic experiences, envisioned what a village might look like at UCLA, and visited all the stadiums in the city as they formulated their plan.

“It was an amazing experience because I got to reconnect with athletes,” Evans said.

Ultimately, the IOC awarded Paris the 2024 Olympics and LA the 2028 edition at the organization’s annual meeting in 2017. All of a sudden, Evans’ 18-month gig turned into a 13-year commitment.

Now in her role as Chief Athlete Officer, Evans is faced with a monumental task: arranging accommodations for 15,000 athletes from more than 200 national Olympic committees (NOCs) across 30 different sports.

“Not every athlete is going to get every single thing because there are 27 different international federations that have needs, too,” Evans said. “It’s become an interesting transition for me away from aquatic sports, if you will, and toward the entirety of the participants at the Games, both Olympic and Paralympics. We love Team USA, but we have 206 national Olympic committees (NOCs) coming to LA. While Team USA is obviously my favorite team, we have a lot of other NOCs that have their needs also.”

The abundance of existing facilities in Los Angeles makes Evans’ job slightly more manageable. Swimming, for instance, was initially slated to take place in a temporary swimming and diving facility that was going to be constructed in USC’s baseball stadium. But last month, organizers called an audible and switched the swimming venue to So-Fi Stadium, a football stadium that will seat up to 38,000 people. There’s a limited window to stage both the Olympics and Paralympics, after UCLA gets out of school but before USC returns in the fall.

Evans calls it “a behemoth of an exercise” to think about everything her organizing committee must execute throughout the summer of 2028. But she says she’s heard it all in terms of feedback. Some of the fixes should be simple, like more towels for the women’s water polo team. Other issues like keeping athletes connected with their friends and family amid the frenzy and transitioning athletes into post-Olympic careers require more complex solutions.

As someone whose 1992 Olympic experience was impacted by her bus driver getting lost in Barcelona between prelims and finals, Evans knows firsthand how important it is for logistics to run smoothly on what might be the most important day of an athlete’s career.

“I had a 45-minute turnaround to eat lunch and get back for finals,” Evans recalled.

Evans is in discussions with the IOC and IPC about developing a career transition program for 2028 Olympic and Paralympic athletes. She started a fellowship program at LA28 a few years ago after seeing athletes’ resumes lack the experience needed to be hired. Evans pointed to former Olympic fencer Cody Mattern, a 2021 fellow who was hired full-time in just four months and promoted twice to senior associate, as one of the program’s success stories.

“Their soft skills and institutional knowledge about the Games is unparalleled and very important to this organization,” Evans said of her athlete fellows. “I know it’s just a small piece of it, but we feel like we’re giving athletes the opportunity to build their resumes, work in the Olympic and Paralympic sports world, and when we all lose our jobs in September of 2028, we’ll be able to send them off with real-world experience.”

Evans says the LA28 athlete fellows will join her in Paris this summer to take in the 2024 Olympics as a learning experience.

“Being at the Games is important,” Evans said. “Seeing it from different points of view is important. Understanding what the village looks like is important. For me, I think the most important information I’ll receive is after the Games, to sit down with athletes to understand the good, the bad, and the ugly. We’ve worked very well with the Paris organizing committee. We have a great relationship with their athlete team. A lot of it for me is watching it, but then understanding from an athlete point of view what it was like for them.”