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LA28 will choose its torchbearers through "a nomination process" open to the general public, and its four presenting partners will pick some of their own. (What LA28 announced.) So for most people, the path to carrying the flame in 2028 runs through someone else writing a few sentences about them.
Those sentences will be read alongside a lot of others. For the 1996 relay, about 40,000 people were nominated for 5,500 community torchbearer places. For Salt Lake 2002, Coca-Cola alone received more than 125,000 nominations. Paris 2024 received more than 100,000 applications for 11,000 places.
Nomination forms for 2028 aren't open yet. When they are, this is how to write one that gets read to the end.
The clearest published criteria come from Atlanta 1996. Nominations were limited to 100 words, and the organizing committee looked for:
Salt Lake 2002 asked for "hometown heroes." Coca-Cola's 1996 program asked, "Who would you choose?" The questions change, but every version is after the same thing: a person, a specific thing they did for other people, and proof that it happened.
Athletic ability isn't on the list. You'll walk or jog about 200 to 300 meters with the torch, and people of every age and fitness level have done it.
Then stop. A committee reading thousands of nominations remembers the specific ones.
This one is invented, to show the shape:
Rosa Delgado has run the free Saturday breakfast at St. Anne's in Tucson since 2011. She started with a hot plate and twelve people. Last winter she served 140 a week, and she knows most of them by name. When the church's kitchen flooded in 2023, she moved the breakfast to her own driveway for three months rather than miss a Saturday. She has never asked for anything in return. The torch is carried by people who keep a light going for others, and nobody in our city has done that longer than Rosa.
That's 94 words. It names one thing, gives numbers, includes a moment that shows character, and ends on why she belongs in the relay.
In Paris, the organizers and each partner ran separate campaigns, each with its own form and deadline.
In 1996 you could nominate yourself or someone else. LA28 hasn't published its rules for 2028 yet.
Atlanta 1996 capped nominations at 100 words. Even where there's no limit, a short, specific nomination is easier for a committee to remember.
LA28 says details are coming in the coming months. Based on recent Games, expect forms in 2027.
No. Most torchbearers since 1984 have been people nominated for what they've done in their communities.
I'm Tom Ciszek, from Santa Monica. When the forms open, I'll send the link to everyone on my list. If you write one for me, write what you actually know: where we met, what you've seen me do. That's the version that works.