Sticking the Landing: Greg Fante on How Louisville Got the USA Gymnastics Olympic Trials

When the call finally came, so did the tears.

It’s not hard to understand why Greg Fante would become emotional upon hearing late last year that Louisville was the city of choice by USA Gymnastics to host that sport’s U.S. Olympic Trials in 2028. After all, Fante, the president and CEO of the Louisville Sports Commission, has been working tirelessly to turn his city into a destination for major events for more than two decades and it has been happening: four PGA Championships at Valhalla; the arrival of an NWSL team, Racing Louisville FC; and now this — the city’s first Olympic trials.

And not just any Olympic trials: gymnastics, one of the glamour sports of the Olympic world. And not just in any year: in 2028, as Olympic fever will spike in the United States in advance of the arrival of the first Summer Games since 1996.

In recent months, details were ironed out that would make the selection official. On Wednesday, as he headed to the official announcement at Churchill Downs, Fante was able to reflect on the journey that brought him and his city to this momentous moment.

“There’s been some real emotion in this,” Fante said. “When we got selected, that call from [former USA Gymnastics CEO] Li Li Leung reduced me to tears for sure. When I got off the phone and told the team, it was some really great emotion from them, and we were able to share it with the Louisville Tourism team.”

There was only one way to celebrate: Kentucky style. “We did pour some nice bourbon that day,” Fante said.

It was well-deserved. Fante joined the Greater Louisville Convention Bureau in 1999, the same year the city’s sports commission launched, and right from the beginning one of the group’s stated goals was to bring an Olympic trials to the city. In the ensuing years the city built a strong bond with both USA Gymnastics — hosting the Acrobatic National Championships in 2005, 2013 and 2014 — and for the sport overall, hosting the Nastia Liukin Cup from 2023–2025 and the Winter Cup from 2023–2026. It was while agreeing to host the latter and improve its financial fortunes that Fante and his team made one thing abundantly clear to USA Gymnastics: they wanted the Olympic Trials.

“The relationship with USA Gymnastics really can not be understated,” Fante said. “We’re here today because of that relationship and the trust by them to deliver, and there’s been a lot of hosting of their smaller events and relationship building in order to build that trust and confidence.”

A Winning Plan

Fante knows well, of course, that trust was only part of the recipe. The other was having the right venue, and in the KFC Yum! Center, Louisville had a game-changing option to offer — with plenty of availability.

According to Fante, the finalists were Louisville and Minneapolis. Representatives from both cities went to Indianapolis last fall to make their final presentations. Minneapolis had hosted the trials at Target Center in late June 2024 before the Olympic Games in Paris. The 2028 trials will be held in mid-June, which made Target Center a dicey proposition, given that the NBA’s Timberwolves, NHL’s Wild and WNBA’s Lynx, the tenants of the Target Center, could all, in theory, be using the building into June.

There was the possibility of Minneapolis hosting at U.S. Bank Stadium, home of the NFL’s Vikings, which would have followed the lead of USA Swimming, which moved its 2024 Olympic Trials to an NFL venue, Lucas Oil Stadium. Fante thinks the fact that Louisville could both offer a larger arena (capacity at KCF Yum! Center is north of 22,000, while Target Center is around 20,000) and no conflicts would allow USA Gymnastics to put off looking at moving the event to such a massive site.

Louisville didn’t just rely on the venue to make its pitch. It brought more than a dozen people to Indianapolis, going over deliverables that it could guarantee from a business standpoint and laying out the team that would be in place if it were selected.

Even after being tapped as the city of choice, Louisville had some work to do. Leung had announced in June 2025 that she would step down as CEO at year’s end, and her replacement, Kyle Albrecht wasn’t appointed until mid-November.

“We were in the midst, by that point, of contract negotiations,” said Fante. “He’s got to get ramped up into everything that was going on. They had big events that were happening as soon as he came on board. We had to push pause for a little bit for him to get his feet under him and get in his position and elevate this [announcement] to a priority behind the events they were having to produce in his first 90 days of being on the job.”

It all got done fairly smoothly, which Fante credits to USA Gymnastics’ detailed RFP process. As the build up has gone on, he and his team have already swelled with pride, not just in their city but in their country. “When you get the opportunity to work in and around an Olympic movement like this, it really does make it feel different,” he said. “You feel vested in Team USA and trying to represent the country in a positive way.”

Raise A Glass

All that was left was the celebration, though that too had to be adjusted. “When we started the process we said, ‘Let’s submit the bid and if we make it to a finalist we’ll celebrate,'” Fante recalls. “When that happened all of us agreed: Why are we celebrating that, that’s not the thing to celebrate. Let’s celebrate if we get selected.'”

There is still one more celebration to come, and that will happen the night of Monday, June 19, 2028, when the last spot on the Olympic team has been secured and the gymnasts going to Los Angeles have been announced. That celebration will not only mark the conclusion of the trials, but of the journey to get to that moment, which is why any old bourbon won’t do.

That moment calls for the grandaddy of all Kentucky bourbons — Pappy Van Winkle. In the Bluegrass State, that is reserved for life’s biggest milestones: births, engagements, weddings. Or successfully hosting an event two decades in the making.

“We’re going to crack that bottle of Pappy when we know who is going to L.A.,” said Fante. “We feel that’s worthy of Pappy. It’s for occasions when you are celebrating something special. This is one of those times. You savor it when you get those opportunities.”