The International Olympic Committee and LA28 organizers have “every confidence” that President Donald Trump’s newly announced travel ban won’t disrupt the Summer Games or the preparations for them.
Speaking after a meeting with the IOC’s coordination commission, LA28 chair and president Casey Wasserman said Thursday that Trump’s travel ban was clear in carving out an exception for the Olympics. Trump wants to block foreign nationals from 12 countries from coming to the United States and partially restrict the entry of foreign nationals from seven others.
The ban, scheduled to go into effect Monday, is likely to be challenged in court.
“I actually want to thank the federal government for recognizing that it’s the Games writ large,” Wasserman said. “It’s the constituents of people — the IOC members here this week and, for the next three years, the cadence of people from federations and governing bodies and (National Olympic Committees) and broadcasters — that you know so well as they’ve come to the city pre-Games and during the Games. It’s very clear that the federal government understands that that’s an environment that they will be accommodating and provide for.
“And so we have great confidence that that will only continue,” Wasserman added. “It has been the case to date, and it will certainly be the case going forward and through the Games.”
Los Angeles and U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee officials signed a contract with the IOC in 2017 that promised, among other things, temporary entry to the United States “without limitation” for “representatives, employees or other persons acting on behalf of, or representing” the IOC, National Olympic Committees, international sport federations, rights-holding broadcasters, marketing partners, media and the Games’ official timekeeper.
“We at the IOC have every confidence in the fact that the local authorities and the federal authorities understand that bringing the Games to your country is a big responsibility. It is 206 countries that are preparing to come to the Games,” Nicole Hoevertsz, an IOC vice president who chairs the LA28 coordination commission, said.
Those 206 countries include some that would be banned by Trump’s order. Afghanistan, Burma, Chad, the Republic of Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Haiti, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen are the countries banned while partial suspensions apply to Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.
“The federal government has given us that guarantee … to make sure that these participants will be able to enter the country,” Hoevertsz added. “… We are very confident that this is going to be accomplished.”
While athletes and others affiliated with the Los Angeles Games might be exempt from the ban, it says nothing about fans who ordinarily travel for the Olympics and World Cup. In addition to the 2028 Olympics, the United States is co-hosting the men’s World Cup next summer with Canada and Mexico.
But Wasserman said he doesn’t anticipate the travel ban affecting ticket sales, answering with a flat “No” when he was asked about the possibility.
