Not Revealed Yet
The 2028 Olympic torch has not been shown publicly. There is no design, no renderings, no named designer, no manufacturer and no reveal date. Any "LA28 torch" you see today is a concept sketch or a guess.
Recent hosts have unveiled their torches roughly a year before opening night, which points to a reveal sometime in 2027. When it happens, I will update this page the same day. Until then, what Los Angeles has built before and where torch design is heading give a fair idea of what 2028 might look like.
1932: A Cauldron Without a Relay
When Los Angeles hosted in 1932, there was no Olympic torch at all, because there was no torch relay. The relay was invented for Berlin 1936, four years later. In 1932, Los Angeles lit a symbolic Olympic fire in the cauldron built atop the Coliseum's peristyle, and it burned there for the length of the Games.
So LA has hosted the Olympics twice but designed a relay torch only once. The cauldron has lasted: the same 1932 vessel was lit again in 1984 and still sits on top of the Coliseum today. The longer story of the flame, from Olympia's altars to now, is here: why the Olympic flame never goes out.
1984: Brass, Aluminum, and a Leather Grip
The one torch Los Angeles has designed is a plain, well-made object. The 1984 torch was an aluminum body finished in antique brass with a leather-wrapped handle, about 22 inches long and roughly a kilogram in weight, with the Olympic motto etched around its upper ring. It looked like something a craftsman would hand you.
It was also American-made. Turner Industries of Sycamore, Illinois, a small torchmaker, won the bid in 1981. Machined parts came out of Sycamore; plating, etching, and final assembly happened at Turner's facility in Irwindale, California.
A trial run in March 1984 exposed a design flaw: the valve sat too deep in the bowl and the propane flame died too easily. Turner adjusted the valve and fuel setup before the relay began, and the fixed torch made it coast to coast. More on the engineering: how Olympic torches are designed and built.
Recycled, Lighter, Refillable
Two recent torches show where the craft has moved.
Paris 2024 commissioned Mathieu Lehanneur, who built a fully symmetrical torch inspired by the rippling surface of the Seine, made from recycled steel. Only about 2,000 torches were produced, a fraction of past relays, because torches were shared between bearers instead of made one per runner.
Milano Cortina 2026 went further. The torch, named Essential, came from Carlo Ratti Associati: recycled aluminum and brass alloy, just under 2.5 pounds, with a vertical opening that exposes the burner so you can see how it works. It burns bio-LPG produced from used cooking oil and agricultural waste, and each torch is refillable for up to ten torchbearer runs, so far fewer needed to be built. I took it apart in detail here: inside the engineering of the 2026 Olympic torch.
Both use recycled materials and lower-carbon thinking, and both show their engineering rather than hide it.
What That Suggests for 2028
This section is my expectation, based on the torches above.
If LA28 follows the trend, expect a torch built from recycled material, running a low-carbon fuel, refillable so a small fleet can serve a 50-state relay that may need one of the largest torchbearer corps ever assembled. Expect sustainability to feature heavily, because Paris and Milano Cortina led with it and LA28 has organized its Games around existing venues for the same reason.
I'd also hope for an American manufacturing story. The 1984 torch was machined in Illinois and finished in California. Whether the torch nods to LA28's superbloom-inspired look of the Games is my speculation, not anyone's announcement. For more on how the 2026 Games previewed LA's choices, see what Milano Cortina 2026 reveals about LA 2028.
When will the LA28 torch be revealed?
Not announced. The recent pattern of reveals about a year before the Games points to 2027.
Who is designing the 2028 torch?
No designer or manufacturer has been named. This page updates when one is.
