US Olympic and Paralympic Speakers to Book Ahead of LA 2028

Olympic and Paralympic speakers bring the discipline, pressure and preparation of elite sport straight into your event. The Los Angeles Olympic Games run from 14 to 30 July 2028, with the Paralympics following from 15 to 27 August, and it is the first summer Games on American soil since Atlanta 1996. Explore our full roster of athlete speakers, or read on for the Team USA names booking now. Working the other side of the Atlantic? We have a separate list of Team GB Olympic and Paralympic speakers.

A home Games changes the conversation. Sponsors, employee events and client hospitality all start pointing at the same summer, and the athletes who will front that coverage are booking their diaries well before it arrives. Several speakers on this list already have a direct line to Los Angeles, including the person running athlete operations for the organizing committee.

Why book an Olympic or Paralympic speaker?

An Olympic or Paralympic speaker gives an audience a first-hand account of preparing for one fixed, unmoveable date. That pressure maps onto commercial deadlines, launches and turnaround plans more directly than most business case studies, which is why athlete speakers work so well at kick-offs, conferences, awards nights and leadership away days.

The practical detail is what lands. Four-year cycles force decisions about what to stop doing, how to measure progress when the result is years away, and how to hold a team together through a bad season. Many of the speakers below have also rebuilt a career after injury, service, illness or a change of sport, which gives them something useful to say to anyone facing a change they did not choose. If your brief is broader than the Games, our US sports speakers list covers the NFL, NBA, MLB and NCAA.

Olympic and Paralympic speakers heading into LA 2028

Janet Evans

Book Janet for

An insider's view of how LA 2028 is being built, from the person representing the athletes in it.

Janet Evans won four Olympic golds and a silver across Seoul 1988, Barcelona 1992 and Atlanta 1996, taking three titles in Seoul alone at the age of 17. Her 800m freestyle world record stood for around 19 years, one of the longest-standing marks in the sport.

She is now Chief Athlete Officer for the LA28 organizing committee, the first role of its kind at an Olympic organizing committee, with a remit covering athlete input into venue and operations decisions. No speaker on this list has a closer view of what the next Games will look like.

Learn more and book Janet Evans →

Matt Stutzman

Book Matt for

Twelve years of work between a silver medal and the gold that followed it.

Matt Stutzman won compound open gold at the Paris 2024 Paralympics, settling the final in a shoot-off. It came twelve years after his silver at London 2012, across four Games and two in between where he finished ninth.

Born without arms, he shoots with his feet using a shoulder harness to draw, and in 2015 took the Guinness record for the furthest accurate shot from an able-bodied archer. He talks about the long middle stretch of a career, the part after the first success and before the second.

Learn more and book Matt Stutzman →

Jackie Joyner-Kersee

Book Jackie for

Four Games, six medals, and a world record that has stood since 1988.

Jackie Joyner-Kersee competed at four Olympic Games and came away with three golds, a silver and two bronzes in the heptathlon and long jump. Her heptathlon world record of 7,291 points, set in Seoul in 1988, has never been beaten. She was also the first American woman to win Olympic long jump gold.

Her first Games were Los Angeles 1984, which gives her a direct line to the city hosting in 2028. She speaks on sustained excellence across a twelve-year competitive span, and on the philanthropic work she has built since.

Learn more and book Jackie Joyner-Kersee →

Jessie Diggins

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Competing through injury, and knowing when to stop.

Jessie Diggins is the most decorated American in cross-country skiing, with four Olympic medals across four Games. She won team sprint gold at PyeongChang 2018, the first Olympic title in the sport for any American, then silver and bronze at Beijing 2022.

She took bronze in the 10km freestyle at Milano Cortina 2026 while racing on ribs injured in an earlier crash. Those Games were her last, and she has been unusually open about the physical and mental cost of a career at that level.

Learn more and book Jessie Diggins →

Erin Jackson

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Switching sport at 24 and reaching an Olympic podium four years later.

Erin Jackson won 500m speed skating gold at Beijing 2022, becoming the first Black woman to win an individual Winter Olympic title. She came to ice from inline skating and roller derby in 2016 and made the 2018 Olympic team with roughly four months of ice experience.

She almost missed Beijing entirely after slipping at the US trials, until teammate Brittany Bowe gave up her own place so Jackson could race. Her teammates elected her as a Team USA flag bearer for the Milano Cortina 2026 opening ceremony.

Learn more and book Erin Jackson →

More Team USA Olympians and Paralympians to book as speakers

Kerri Walsh Jennings

Three beach volleyball golds with Misty May-Treanor at Athens, Beijing and London, plus a bronze in Rio and a fifth Olympic appearance in indoor volleyball at Sydney 2000. The Athens run was seven matches without dropping a set.

Learn more and book Kerri Walsh Jennings →

Michael Johnson

Four Olympic golds across three Games, and the only man to win the 200m and 400m at the same Olympics, which he did in Atlanta in 1996 with a 19.32 world record. In Sydney he became the first man to defend the Olympic 400m title.

Learn more and book Michael Johnson →

Dominique Dawes

A three-Games gymnast and part of the 1996 Magnificent Seven team gold in Atlanta, where her floor bronze made her the first African American gymnast to medal in an individual Olympic event. She later co-chaired the President's Council on Fitness, Sports and Nutrition.

Learn more and book Dominique Dawes →

Rowdy Gaines

Three swimming golds at Los Angeles 1984, won after the 1980 boycott cost him a Games at what he considered his peak. He has been NBC's lead swimming analyst since 1992 and has said he will retire from broadcasting after LA 2028, which makes the next Games a bookend to a forty-year story.

Learn more and book Rowdy Gaines →

Brenda Villa

Four Games, four medals, and the captain who led the USA to its first Olympic water polo gold at London 2012. She grew up in Commerce, California and played on the boys' team at high school because there was no girls' team, which makes an LA-hosted Games a homecoming.

Learn more and book Brenda Villa →

Dan Cnossen

A former Navy SEAL who lost both legs to an IED in Afghanistan in 2009, then won six medals at a single Paralympics in PyeongChang, including biathlon gold, and a seventh in Beijing. He also holds two Harvard master's degrees.

Learn more and book Dan Cnossen →

Lindsay Tarpley

Two Olympic soccer golds with the USA at Athens and Beijing, including the goal that opened the scoring in the 2004 final against Brazil. She won 125 caps and scored 32 international goals.

Learn more and book Lindsay Tarpley →

Melissa Stockwell

The first female US soldier to lose a limb in Iraq, and the first Iraq War veteran selected for a US Paralympic team. She swam in Beijing, then switched to paratriathlon and took bronze in Rio in the event's first ever Paralympic appearance, going on to four Games and three world titles.

Learn more and book Melissa Stockwell →

Amy Purdy

Three Paralympic snowboarding medals across Sochi and PyeongChang, won after bacterial meningitis at 19 cost her both legs below the knee, both kidneys and her spleen. Sochi 2014 was the first Paralympics to include snowboarding at all.

Learn more and book Amy Purdy →

Lex Gillette

Five Paralympic Games from Athens to Tokyo, and a long jump silver at every one of them. Totally blind since the age of eight, he jumps to the sound of his guide's voice, and held the world record in his class for close to a decade. Also a four-time world champion.

Learn more and book Lex Gillette →

Chaunté Lowe

A four-time Olympic high jumper whose Beijing 2008 bronze reached her almost a decade later, after three athletes ahead of her were disqualified for doping. She was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer in 2019 and kept training through treatment.

Learn more and book Chaunté Lowe →

Danelle Umstead

Three Paralympic bronzes in alpine skiing across Vancouver and Sochi, and four Winter Games in total. She has retinitis pigmentosa and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2010, and skis behind the voice of her husband Rob, her sighted guide for her whole career.

Learn more and book Danelle Umstead →

Chris Mazdzer

Four Olympic Games in luge, with a silver at PyeongChang 2018 that made him the first non-European to medal in men's singles. It came at his third Games, after finishing 13th at each of the first two.

Learn more and book Chris Mazdzer →

Johnny Quinn

A bobsledder at Sochi 2014 who came to the sport from American football, having been on NFL practice squads with Buffalo and Green Bay and played in the CFL. One of very few people to have been on an NFL roster and competed at a Winter Olympics.

Learn more and book Johnny Quinn →

Blake Leeper

A double below-knee amputee sprinter who won 400m silver and 200m bronze at the London 2012 Paralympics. He later mounted a long legal challenge to compete against able-bodied athletes, which the Court of Arbitration for Sport rejected in 2020 while striking down part of the rule as discriminatory.

Learn more and book Blake Leeper →

Charlie Swearingen

A sitting volleyball Paralympian who represented the USA at Rio 2016, with three Parapan American Games silvers alongside it. Born without ankle bones or fibulae, he works as a certified flight paramedic and responded in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Learn more and book Charlie Swearingen →

Dana Lynn Hee

Won gold in taekwondo as a demonstration sport at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, roughly three years after taking up the sport as an adult. She went on to a long Hollywood stunt career with credits including Spider-Man 2 and The Avengers, and talks about overcoming adversity through visualization and preparation.

Learn more and book Dana Lynn Hee →

Frequently Asked Questions

When are the LA 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games?

The Los Angeles Olympic Games run from 14 to 30 July 2028, and the Paralympic Games from 15 to 27 August 2028. Flag football and squash make their Olympic debuts, cricket, lacrosse and baseball/softball return, and skateboarding, sport climbing and surfing move onto the core program.

Which of these speakers has a direct connection to the LA Games?

Janet Evans is Chief Athlete Officer for the LA28 organizing committee. Rowdy Gaines won three golds at Los Angeles 1984 and plans to retire from broadcasting after 2028. Jackie Joyner-Kersee made her Olympic debut at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, and Brenda Villa grew up in Commerce, just outside the city.

How far ahead should I book an Olympic speaker?

Diaries fill up fast in a Games year, when athlete speakers are in demand and many are also working as broadcasters or with sponsors. Booking in the years between Games gives you a wider choice of names and more flexibility on dates, so the runway to 2028 is the easiest window to work in.

How much does it cost to book an Olympic or Paralympic speaker?

In-person bookings start from $2,000, and the fee moves with the speaker's profile, the format and the date. A keynote, a Q&A, an awards host slot and a full-day workshop all price differently, and travel and accommodation sit on top. Send us your date, audience size and budget range through the chat and we will come back with names that fit.

Do you have winter sport speakers as well as summer Olympians?

Yes. Jessie Diggins and Erin Jackson both competed at Milano Cortina 2026, and Dan Cnossen, Amy Purdy, Danelle Umstead, Chris Mazdzer and Johnny Quinn all have Winter Games behind them across biathlon, snowboarding, alpine skiing, luge and bobsled.

💡 Planning an event in the runway to LA 2028? Tell us your date, your audience and what you want them to leave with, and we will find the perfect PepTalk expert for your organization. Send us a message via the chat and we'll take it from there. Remember, it's always a good time to get a PepTalk!