With the curtain drawn on the Milan-Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics, the traditional handoff to the next Olympic host city – in this case, Los Angeles, which will host the 2028 Summer Games –is loaded with more than symbolism of unity and continuity. 

The baton being passed from the Alps to the Pacific will arrive with the accumulated weight of protests, partisan skirmishes and geopolitical tension. 

The Italian Games, which concluded Sunday, unfolded with hisses and boos aimed at Vice President JD Vance, anti-U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) demonstrations in Milan, and a steady drumbeat of criticism from athletes and coaches on President Donald Trump’s policies. 

There were plenty of positive stories emerging from the Games, ranging from fans’ apolitical embrace of athletes to the U.S.’s dramatic 2-1 victory over Canada that gave the country its first Gold Medal in men’s hockey since the “Miracle on Ice” victory in 1980 to the pageantry and spectacle of the closing ceremonies in the 2,000-year-old Arena in Verona. 

But the Olympic flame in Los Angeles will burn amid fresh scrutiny after Casey Wasserman, chairman of the organizing committee, was cited multiple times in the Epstein Files and in the heat of the lead-up to the 2028 U.S. presidential election campaign. There has so far been no investigation into Wasserman’s activities as a result of the files.

If the Games in Milan and Cortina were a preview of how blurry the line between sports and politics had become, Los Angeles appears set to test whether it can or should be redrawn. 

It’s already started, with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass calling for Wasserman to resign – "Now is the moment for accountability,” Bass said – even as the organizing committee and LA28 board stood by him. 

Kirsty Coventry, president of the International Olympic Committee, has been trying to downplay the latest wave of politicization of the Games. 

In Milan, Coventry called the controversies over ICE being part of the Games' security detail and the made public Justice Department files on Jeffrey Epstein, the well-connected and deceased sex-crimes offender, “sad distractions” that had to be endured. 

“But what is keeping my faith alive,” she said, “is that when those athletes start competing, suddenly the world remembers the magic and spirit of the Olympic Games.”

But based on media coverage of the Milan-Cortina Games, Coventry’s optimism is ringing hollow to many. 

Critics in both Europe and the U.S. have argued that flash points that arose around the Games reflect a deep mistrust of the role of sports in an era of political division and partisanship. 

That’s likely to continue in Los Angeles, where early indications are that prioritizing issues like security, migration, and national representation are raising the possibility that the Olympics could become an ideological battleground deep into the 2028 presidential campaign. 

The 2028 Los Angles Games will take place July 14-30, about four months before the U.S. elects a new leader, with President Trump having served his maximum two terms. 

President Trump in his final term roiled some European countries ahead and amid the Winter Olympics, in large part because of his trade tariffs and designs on Greenland – an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, which is part of Northern Europe. 

Los Angeles, which previously hosted the Olympics in 1932 and 1984, will become the third city to host the Summer Olympics three times, joining London and Paris.