Let the Games Begin
Photo credit Girish Sangammanavar
When most people picture the Olympics, they think of a single moment: the opening ceremony, a medal stand, a world record, a victory lap. But at an IOC media roundtable on January 27 attended by The Vine, Olympic leaders urged reporters to widen that lens. “The games are not just sports, competitions, and contests,” said director of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage Angelita Teo. “The games are so much more. They embody a much larger movement, steeped in history, culture, and values.”
That “something more” is the Cultural Olympiad, and it presents an opportunity for locals, including Irvinites, to take part in the LA28 Olympics before the first event begins.
The Cultural Olympiad is the Olympics’ official cultural platform. This multi-year program runs alongside each edition of the Games, bringing together art, education, heritage, and community participation. It’s designed to connect Olympic values with the identity of a host region through exhibitions, performances, workshops, public installations, and youth programming. The point isn’t just entertainment but also community involvement.
That approach is already playing out in Italy as the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Games draw nearer. The IOC media roundtable offered a preview not only of Italy’s plans, but of the philosophy LA28 may need to adopt if it wants its own Cultural Olympiad to feel local and authentic.
“We safeguard and share Olympic heritage, culture, and values across sports, education, and the arts,” Teo said. “While preserving and activating Olympic history, we position sport as a cultural and human experience through storytelling, education, and various art forms.”
Yasmin Meichtry, the Foundation’s deputy director, echoed the idea that Olympic culture is bigger than the two-week competition window.
“Generally when people think about the Olympic Games, they often think about a single moment,” she said. But her team focuses on “what comes before, during, but also after the games… the stories, the values, and the cultural impact that go far beyond sport.”
For Milano Cortina, those ideas translate into a nationwide cultural effort. Domenico De Maio, the organizing committee’s director of education and culture, said the Cultural Olympiad is “not just a calendar of the event. It’s a movement.” Running from 2024 to 2026, he explained, it’s meant to engage communities across Italy with a simple goal: “to move the community.”
De Maio’s comments point to an important issue for LA28. How can organizers make the Olympics feel like something residents are part of?
When The Vine asked De Maio what advice he would offer LA28, he pointed to the method behind Milano Cortina’s early momentum: “to engage a large community… to create a bridge with a territory.” And crucially, he added, the work should not be “top down, but bottom up.” In practice, he described building partnerships with municipalities, regions, and cultural institutions, not just those in Milan. If LA28 wants to build a similar coalition that can support projects aligned with Olympic values while still reflecting local identity, Irvine has a part to play.
Irvine has the ingredients to contribute meaningfully to the LA28 Cultural Olympiad: excellent schools and universities, a diverse arts landscape, major civic spaces, and a strong youth sports culture. We also have community groups that already run festivals, performances, exhibitions, and service programs. A locally rooted LA28 Cultural Olympiad could include student storytelling projects, city-library programming, community arts workshops, neighborhood exhibitions, heritage initiatives, and collaborations that link sports to local schools of music, dance, design, film, and education.
The roundtable offered examples of how Italy is expanding the Cultural Olympiad beyond traditional venues. The Olympic Museum is supporting more than 50 projects connected to the Games, Meichtry said, including exhibitions, artistic posters, and major collaborations with Italian institutions. One project transforms a Milan metro station into an immersive Olympic installation, embedding Olympic culture into daily life for commuters. Another focuses attention not only on athletes but on the people who make the Games run.
“More than 1,200 volunteers are preparing to bring the ceremony to life,” Meichtry noted, describing a photography project capturing the behind-the-scenes work of the opening ceremony.
The emphasis on community involvement as the real measure of success was a theme throughout the roundtable. Teo said community ownership of the Games is essential. “Getting communities involved is something that we put in the forefront.”
For Irvinites, participation doesn’t have to wait until 2028, and it doesn’t have to require a ticket to a venue. If LA28 takes the Milano Cortina lesson seriously to build early, build broad, and build from the ground up, our Cultural Olympiad could become the doorway for residents across the region to help shape the Olympic story in Southern California.
Learn more about the Olympic Museum here.
Editor’s note (Feb. 1): This article has been updated to correct the spelling of Yasmin Meichtry’s name and to clarify that the quoted opening remarks are attributed to Angelita Teo, director of the Olympic Foundation for Culture and Heritage.