With the world-class Marguerite Aquatics Complex, state-of-the-art track and field facilities at Saddleback College and the city’s expansive lake, Mission Viejo leaders think they have a lot to offer teams coming from countries to compete in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
This week, the City Council agreed to a multi-year cooperative agreement with Team Netherlands, granting the country’s athletes and trainers access to the city’s amenities and the city’s help in securing other needed training facilities and lodging and food in preparation for the games. The Dutch will be paying the city an anticipated $1 million deposited over the next few years to offset costs — money that could start to arrive by the end of the year.
And the influx of hundreds of athletes, trainers and their families will provide local businesses, hotels and entertainment venues in the south Orange County city and realistically many of its neighbors, an economic boost, city officials said.
“I think this is a great thing for our city, for our community, for our residents, for our youth athletes and for our businesses,” Councilmember Wendy Bucknum said. “It helps our hotels, it helps our neighboring hotels and cities that we are going to be talking into participating in this with us.”
The city, one of the first in Southern California to ink such a deal, isn’t stopping with the Dutch, which is considered an “anchor team” and will, of course, get first dibs on all the amenities. City leaders are adding in teams from other countries to fill the available holes. On Tuesday, the world-famous Nadadores Foundation, which trains in Marguerite Aquatics Complex, announced that divers from Australia and France will join delegations from the Dutch and Team USA for pre-game training in the city.
“People have said, ‘How do you have this done already?’” said Michele Mitchell, executive director of the Nadadore Foundation and a 1984 Olympic silver medalist, who is on Mission Viejo’s Sports & Events Tourism Committee, created in 2017 to plan for the LA28 Games. “The answer is we started five years ago.”
Now, she said, city officials from other towns, including San Clemente, just north of Lower Trestles where Olympic surfing will be held, are sitting in on the committee’s meetings. And Councilmember Brian Goodell, the first gold medalist from Mission Viejo as a swimmer in 1976, a few weeks ago gave a tutorial of sorts at a Southern California Association of Governments meeting for cities that aren’t hosting venues but still want to bring a piece of the Olympics to their town.
“I just wish we had more hotels,” Goodell said, “because we would fill them all up.”
The effort to get the city involved in the upcoming Los Angeles Games first began eight years ago, right after the location was announced, said Mayor Bob Ruesch, adding that Mission Viejo has a long tradition with the Olympics, having hosted the 1984 cycling races and giving out the first medals of those games. He credited Mitchell and Goodell, who is a two-time gold medalist, with helping get the city into the Olympic club and shepherding the process.
“Our intention, of course, was to offer to the LA 2028 to do it again,” Ruesch said. But the city was told officials then wanted to keep the sporting events within Los Angeles, so the city formed the sports tourism committee, he said, and went to Plan B, inviting countries and teams to consider Mission Viejo as a site for training and housing in preparation for the games.
Ruesch, who lives on Lake Mission Viejo, toured the Dutch around on his boat in November 2023 and said the Netherlands Olympic Committee representatives formed a close bond with him and the other city representatives.
“They invited us to come to Paris, which we did,” Ruesch said of last summer’s games. While there, representatives signed a memorandum of understanding with city officials that led to the agreement voted on by the council this week. The Dutch will be responsible for the majority of their costs, officials said, with the city supporting some transportation costs and costs for community engagement events that might be arranged.
“They said what was the most compelling about Mission Viejo was the access to the community and the community spirit,” Reusch said. “They felt very at home here. The Dutch are a very family oriented country. They saw when they came out, everyone was happy, children were here, adults and older people were here. Everyone expressed a warm welcome.”
They also liked that Mission Viejo was a bikeable community and that there were opportunities for their athletes to do community outreach at the local schools and at Providence Mission Hospital, he said.
“All of the boxes they were looking for, they found,” he said.
Now, with the agreement locked in with the Dutch, Ruesch said the city will consider other countries that have expressed interest in utilizing some of the facilities, especially at the aquatics complex. The city is also connecting teams with Saddleback College and local school districts that have facilities that can be rented — the expectation is teams would pay discounted rates, similar to those of a nonprofit.
“Once we have a scope of what we think the Dutch need, we’ll start backfilling with other countries,” Ruesch said.
At the Marguerite Aquatics Complex, Mitchell said she is getting ready for what will become a very full house over the next few years leading up to the Olympics.
“The U.S. team will be training here with the Dutch, then we’ve got Australia and France locked in to be utilizing the facility for diving,” she said. “I’m also talking now with a couple of other federations, so, the aquatic facility will be full, full. It will be the hotbed of pregame training.”
Mitchell said the teams don’t just show up a few weeks before the games. Typically, most send out test groups for other training camps. For example, the French and Australians have inquired about hosting training camps in Mission Viejo, with one scheduled for 2026 and another for 2027. And international swim teams could come in next summer to use the facility on their way to other world events.
“This isn’t just about the facility, it’s truly about the momentum and the Olympic movement,” she said. “The fact we’re an hourish from LA, the fact that Mission Viejo and South Orange County is a beautiful place to be, will only just add literal fuel to the Olympic fire. That’s what’s beautiful about these delegations coming over.”
Mitchell said last summer, athletes from Oceania, a consortium of small Pacific islands, came and to her it exemplified the beauty of what the games are all about.
“It doesn’t matter if you come from a tiny little town or a tiny little island in the middle of the Pacific or if you’re from London or Amsterdam,” she said. “The Olympic movement just personifies in my mind that all of us really are the same. That humans around the world are all the same. We may have different skin tones, different ways to pronounce our name, but ultimately, all athletes want the same thing. It really personifies the human existence.”
“That’s why I’m so excited to bring the Olympic enthusiasm for life to Mission Viejo,” she added, recalling the spirit in the city during the 1984 Olympics when the streets in town were lined with people greeting the athletes.
“For me, that’s the whole purpose of doing this. It’s for the youth of not only our community, but Southern California. It’s bringing these people to our back door,” she said. “We’re really fortunate the city has fields and gymnasiums, swimming pools and sand volleyball courts, and the lake. All these are incorporated in one way or another in the Olympic movement. It’s going to be a very joyous month or two of Olympic spirit.”