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≡ SPOTLIGHT ≡
One of the most challenging aspects of starting up an Olympic and Paralympic organizing committee for U.S. hosts, operating without government subsidies, is funding.
The LA28 organizers and the International Olympic Committee committed to a $180 million advance over five years from 2018-22, primarily to support youth sports in the City of Los Angeles, but which also helped to get the effort started.
At 4 p.m. Mountain Time on Monday, Salt Lake City-Utah 2034 will announce its first round of donors – to be streamed on YouTube – which will be in excess of the nearly-$150 million already noted at the Utah Legislature’s Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Coordination Committee meeting on 14 August 2025.
Wow.
There are also seven world championships either continuing or getting started, around the world:
● Archery: The 53rd World Archery Championships are ongoing in Gwangju (KOR), with home fans looking for medals in the Recurve division, where Korean archers swept all five Olympic events in Paris in 2024, including Woo-jin Kim, who won his first individual men’s gold to go with three Worlds victories, in 2011, 2015 and 2021. Si-hyeon Lim won the women’s Olympic gold and teamed with Kim to take the Mixed Team gold.
● Athletics: The World Athletics Championships start Saturday (13th) in Tokyo (JPN) in the National Stadium, but this time with fans instead of the quiet during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games in 2021.
The first weekend of events will be highlighted by the men’s shot final with American Ryan Crouser – who has not thrown all season – trying for his third straight Worlds gold, and American Valarie Allman going for her 28th straight win in the women’s discus, and the men’s and women’s 100 m finals.
The U.S. has both defending 100 champions in Noah Lyles and Sha’Carri Richardson, but the favorites are Jamaica’s Kishane Thompson and either St. Lucia’s Olympic winner Julien Alfred or American Melissa Jefferson-Wooden. The meet will continue through the 21st.
● Boxing: The first World Boxing Championships organized by the new World Boxing federation started on 4 September in Liverpool (GBR) with 540 fighters from 66 federations taking part. There are 10 weight classes for men and women, with three finals on Saturday (13th) and 17 gold-medal matches on Sunday (14th).
● Cycling: The UCI Mountain Bike World Championships will finish this week with the Cross Country Olympic and Cross Country Short Track racing in Switzerland.
The Short Track finals will be on Tuesday (9th), with Victor Koretzky (FRA) and Evie Richards (GBR) the defending champions.
The Cross Country Olympic finals, in junior and senior divisions, will be held on 11-12-13-14 September. South Africa’s Alan Hatherly and Puck Pieterse (NED) won the men’s and women’s World titles in 2024; the Olympic champions were Tom Pidcock (GBR: now at the Vuelta a Espana) and France’s Pauline Ferrand-Prevot.
● Surfing: The 37th World Surfing Games has started at La Bocana (ESA) for the third time in the last five years with competition working its way toward the finals on 14 September.
Gabriel Medina (BRA: men) and Sally Fitzgibbons (AUS: women) are the defending champions. The Paris Olympic winners – in Tahiti – were Kauli Vasst (FRA) and American Caroline Marks.
● Volleyball: Now that the women’s FIVB World Championship has finished, the men will start, in the Philippines on the 12th and continue to 28 September. There are 32 teams in all, who will play in four-team pools, with the top two in each advancing to the playoffs.
The top seeds include Poland at no. 1, then France, the U.S., Slovenia, Italy and Japan as the top six. Italy is the defending champion, winning in 2022 over Poland; at Paris in 2024, France won over Poland, with the U.S. third.
● Wrestling: The annual UWW World Championships start in Zagreb (CRO) on the 13th and run to the 21st, with the men’s Freestyle from 13-16, women’s Freestyle from 15-18 and Greco-Roman from 18-21.
Weights were split in 2024 between the Olympic program and a separate Worlds afterwards; at the last full Worlds in 2023, the U.S. topped the medal table with 14, to 12 for Japan. The U.S. won the men’s Freestyle team title, and was second to Japan in the women’s Freestyle standings; Azerbaijan won the Greco-Roman title over Iran.
Those are the World Championships, but hardly the only headliners this week. The 80th Vuelta a Espana, the third of the cycling Grand Tours in 2025, enters its final week with Denmark’s favored Jonas Vingegaard in front of Portugal’s Joao Almeida by 48 seconds.
There are hilly stages on Tuesday and Wednesday, an Individual Time Trial on Thursday and a final climbing stage on Saturday for Almeida to make a charge. The race has been continually marred by pro-Palestinian protests and more are expected in the final week.
The move of the World Athletics Championships to the end of the season, instead of in August, has created new scheduling quirks, such as the Berlin Marathon taking place on the final day of the Worlds (although the Worlds marathons are on 14-15 September).
Nonetheless, a strong field is lined up for Berlin, with Kenya’s Sebastian Sawe (2:02:05 in 2024) and defending champ Milkesa Mengesha (ETH: 2:03:17) leading the men’s racers. Kenya’s Rosemary Wanjiru (2:16:14 in 2024) and Ethiopian Degitu Azimeraw (2:17:58 in 2021) are the fastest women’s entries.
Looking ahead, the International Olympic Committee Executive Board will meet in Milan (ITA) on 18-19 September, with consideration of what to do about Russian and Belarusian athletes for the 2026 Olympic Winter Games on the discussion list.
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