The women’s 100 metres track and field’s most iconic event will undergo a radical and unprecedented transformation at the LA 2028 Olympic Games.
For the first time in Olympic history, all competitive rounds of the event will be packed into a single day: preliminary heats, Round 1, the semi-finals and the final. Scheduled for July 15, 2028, this structural compression marks a dramatic departure from decades of sprinting tradition and sets up a unique physical, strategic and ethical debate.
For generations, the 100m at major championships has been deliberately designed across two days, giving sprinters the vital overnight recovery needed to reach peak velocity in the final. LA 2028 breaks that formula. Organizers want to “open the Games with a bang,” placing the women’s 100m final on Day 1 of athletics and using it as a centerpiece of the opening weekend.
But the change has created a profound tension: while the move amplifies spectacle, visibility and gender representation, it simultaneously raises major concerns about performance integrity and athlete welfare.
Why LA 2028 Compressed the Event
The compressed schedule is not merely a marketing choice it is fundamentally driven by logistics. The opening ceremony will be held at SoFi Stadium, the same venue designated to host Olympic swimming. Organizers concluded that it was impossible to convert SoFi from opening ceremony configuration to a fully operational aquatic centre in time for swimming to begin the next morning. To accommodate that constraint, LA 2028 shifted track and field into Week 1, and aquatics into Week 2.
This shift created open space at the LA Memorial Coliseum for a dramatic Day 1 athletics programme. LA28 officials leaned into the opportunity, choosing to stage the women’s 100m final on opening night. World Athletics president Sebastian Coe framed the decision as a powerful statement of gender equality, while LA28 leadership highlighted the chance to deliver “one of the most-watched races of the Olympics” at the very start of the Games.
Day 1 will officially host more women’s finals than any opening day in Olympic history.
The Controversy: Why Only Women Face This Load
If the move were truly about competitive equality, the men’s schedule would mirror the women’s. But it does not.
Men’s 100m
- Round 1: July 15
- Semi-finals + Final: July 16
- Athletes enjoy full overnight recovery before the final.
Women’s 100m
- Round 1, Semi-finals and Final: all on July 15
- Only short intra-day rest available.
This immediately exposes a structural imbalance. The women must complete three maximal-effort sprints in one day; the men perform the same workload across two days. Physiologically, that difference is enormous. Overnight rest 12 or more hours plays a vital role in restoring the neuromuscular system and replenishing phosphocreatine (PCr), which fuels maximal speed.
By denying that recovery window, the LA28 schedule guarantees that the women’s final will be run under partial fatigue.
Physiological Consequences: The Cost of Three Maximal Sprints in a Day
The 100 metres is almost entirely powered by the ATP-PCr system. Elite sprinters rely on explosive, short-duration energy stores to reach peak velocity. After a single 100m sprint, PCr levels drop sharply and take hours not minutes to fully recover.
Under the compressed LA28 format, athletes will face:
- A morning/early afternoon round
- An evening semi-final
- A final within one to two hours of the semi
The result is cumulative fatigue. While PCr partially recovers within minutes, full neuromuscular and metabolic restoration requires much longer. Without this restoration, the athlete’s maximal velocity drops, acceleration curves flatten, and late-race deceleration increases. In other words, the LA 2028 final will likely be slower not because athletes lack talent, but because the schedule denies them the conditions needed to reach peak performance.
Indian Women’s Long Jump in 2025: A Season of High Ceilings, Harsh Realities, and New Rising Stars
Sprinters will not be racing for the fastest possible time. They’ll be racing for survival.
Injury Risk: A Silent But Serious Concern
When fatigue collides with maximal sprinting, injury risk skyrockets. Hamstrings, responsible for force production during top speed, are especially vulnerable when neuromuscular control is compromised. Coaches warn that the women’s semi-final and final run under acute fatigue could create extraordinary strain on athletes’ soft tissue structures.
The schedule may therefore increase the likelihood of high-speed injuries on the Olympic stage.
Officially, World Athletics and LA28 insist that consultation with athletes showed “overwhelming support.” Stars such as Dina Asher-Smith and Sha’Carri Richardson publicly embraced the challenge, acknowledging both the honour and the novelty of opening the Games. But among coaches, performance experts and fans, the pushback has been forceful.
Many also point to the contradiction in claiming gender equality while giving men the optimal recovery period and giving women the compressed load. The event will shift from a pure speed contest to a test of repeated-sprint ability, mental resolve and fatigue management.
A High-Stakes Experiment for the Future
The LA 2028 women’s 100m schedule is a gamble one blending logistics, symbolism and entertainment with the physiology of sprinting. If the event produces slower times or a concerning injury profile, World Athletics may face pressure to restore the traditional two-day format.
LA 2028 Athletics Programme: A Historic Reshaping of the Olympic Calendar
For now, the sport prepares for a new Olympic reality: the greatest sprinters on earth, forced to run three full-effort 100m races in one day, chasing the title of fastest woman alive under the most challenging format ever seen on an Olympic track.
