Dedeaux Field, home of the USC Trojans baseball field, would be temporarily transformed into an aquatics venue for the 2024 Summer Olympics if Los Angeles lands the games.
The plan is to transform the ballpark into a temporary open-air aquatics facility, using techniques pioneered at recent US swimming competitions, including this summer’s sold-out US Olympic Team Trials at the CenturyLink Center in Omaha, Nebraska. The adjacent training venue will be the two pools at USC’s Uytengsu Aquatics Center, site of the 1984 Olympic swimming competitions, giving swimmers and divers at LA 2024 the unique opportunity to train in an Olympic venue.
The aquatics venue would be part of a Downtown Cluster of Olympic venues that would include the LA Memorial Coliseum, the Staples Center, Galen Center, Microsoft Theater and a new LA FC stadium to be built on the site of the old Sports Arena.
“As a swimmer, I’m incredibly excited about being able to offer athletes the chance to perform in the most state-of-the-art competition pool, but also train in an Olympic standard pool,” LA 2024 Vice Chair and Director of Athlete Relations Janet Evans said. “Both our track and field and swimming venues shows the depth of quality sports venues we are lucky enough to have at our disposal here in LA. With our ideal venues, world-class housing facilities and personalized services for athletes, in Los Angeles Olympians and Paralympians will have everything they could possibly need to achieve their dreams.”