LA28 has confirmed that, for the first time, the Olympic flame will visit all 50 states before arriving in Los Angeles for the Opening Ceremony on July 14, 2028. On September 29, 2026 it also named the start: the relay begins in Atlanta in spring 2028, with the full route coming in 2027. I covered the start-city rumors before the announcement, and the confirmed facts live in the 50-state relay hub. This piece is about how you build a route like that.
America has run three large torch relays, and each one solved a different part of the problem.
1984: The Straight Line
The 1984 relay began on May 8, 1984, opposite the United Nations in New York City. Gina Hemphill and Bill Thorpe Jr., grandchildren of Jesse Owens and Jim Thorpe, ran the first kilometer together. Over 82 days, 3,636 torchbearers carried the flame more than 9,000 miles through 33 states to Los Angeles, where Rafer Johnson lit the cauldron.
It was one continuous line, coast to coast, with runners from morning to night, and people came out to stand along it. It also pioneered the funding model, selling sponsored kilometers at $3,000 apiece to raise millions for youth sports. The 1984 relay deserves its own telling. For 2028 the lesson is that a single unbroken line draws huge crowds and can only touch about 33 states. A 50-state route cannot be one line.
1996: The Vehicles
Atlanta's Centennial relay solved the scale problem with vehicles. The flame landed in Los Angeles on April 27, 1996, a deliberate handoff from the last American host city, and the first US torchbearer was Rafer Johnson, the man who had lit the cauldron in 1984. Over 84 days, some 10,000 torchbearers moved the flame roughly 15,000 miles through 42 states plus Washington, DC, timed so that the fire burned on American soil for 100 days in the Games' centennial year.
The flame rode a steamboat, a sailboat, a canoe, and a 19-car Union Pacific train; Pony Express riders carried it on horseback for more than 56 continuous hours. Each vehicle meant something to the place it ran through, and the train covered the empty miles overnight. Vehicles are how a relay scales, and well-chosen ones add to it. That relay ended with Muhammad Ali in Atlanta.
2002: The Theme
Salt Lake City had the hardest job: a winter relay, 65 days from December 4, 2001 to February 8, 2002. It started in Atlanta, again passing the flame from the previous American host, and 12,012 torchbearers carried it 13,500 miles through 46 states, the most any relay had reached.
It had a thread. Weeks after September 11, the flame was carried past the World Trade Center site. It visited America's past Olympic host cities: Atlanta, St. Louis, Lake Placid, Squaw Valley, Los Angeles. It ran through Arches National Park in the snow. At the Opening Ceremony the cauldron was lit by the entire 1980 Miracle on Ice hockey team, the first team ever to do it. Mileage is logistics; a relay also needs a narrative. 2002 also hit 46 states in nine winter weeks only by flying the flame between legs in its safety lanterns.
The Math of 50
Reports point to a relay of about 100 days for 2028, which averages out to roughly two days per state. No previous relay has reached all 50, 1996 stopped at 42 and 2002 at 46, and the obstacles are Alaska and Hawaii. A 50-state route needs air legs, so the 2028 relay will almost certainly be a spine with spurs: a main overland route in the 1984 tradition, with the flame flying out in lanterns for celebration days in the states the line cannot touch.
From 1996, take the vehicles, and America has plenty of them. From 2002, take a theme, plus the host-lineage logic that sent the 1996 flame through Los Angeles and started 2002 in Atlanta. LA28 has now followed that logic and started 2028 in Atlanta too. From 1984, keep the running. Vehicles move a flame, but people turn out for a runner on their own street.
All three relays gave each place at least one memorable picture: a summit, a courthouse square, a river crossing, a main street at dusk. With fifty states, that is at least fifty.
