One week. A very short week. For the nine sports candidate for entry into the program of the Los Angeles Games in 2028, there are only seven days of waiting before discovering the decision of the IOC Executive Board.
Our Agency Reuters reports, citing a source close to the matter, that the decision-making body of the Olympic body will decide the question at its next meeting, scheduled for Friday September 8 in Lausanne. Thomas Bach and his inner circle will choose, among the nine sports still in the race, the ones most in line with the vision, and especially the dimensions, of the Los Angeles 2028 Games. The list of sports selected, presumed to be very small, will then be submitted for validation at the next IOC session. It is scheduled to be held from October 15 to 17, 2023 in Mumbai, India.
As a reminder, nine sports can still dream of experiencing the Los Angeles 2028 Games from the inside, as additional sports: flag football, karate, kickboxing, baseball-softball, lacrosse, breaking, squash, running automobile and cricket.
The initial list, whose composition was never officially revealed, included at least half a dozen additional players, including teqball and sambo. Los Angeles made a first choice. It then passed through the sieve of the Olympic program commission, chaired by the Austrian Karl Stoss. But the decision rests with the executive commission, the session being only called upon to ratify its choice.
On paper, the list of candidates appears to be a fairly heterogeneous mix of team sports – baseball/softball, lacrosse, cricket and flag football – and individual disciplines – karate, squash, breaking, kickboxing. It has a surprise guest, car racing. Among them, two sports have already experienced the Olympic atmosphere: karate and baseball-softball. They were notably present at the Tokyo 2020 Games. A third, breaking, will make its debut next year at the Paris 2024 Games.
How many will there be, Friday September 8, to sing a song of victory when the results are announced? Difficult to answer. At the Tokyo Games, where the concept of additional sports was introduced, the program included five: karate, climbing, surfing, skateboarding and baseball/softball. For Paris 2024, the list has been reduced to four (climbing, surfing, skateboarding and breaking). Between the two editions, the IOC changed the situation by requiring that new entrants not increase the quota of 10.500 athletes.
With such constraints, it seems difficult to imagine more than one team sport coming out of the hat next Friday during the IOC Executive Board meeting. But which one? Baseball/softball would be a natural choice for a Games in the United States. But maybe too obvious. Flag football ran a very active campaign, arguably the most visible of all the applicants. Its international federation, the IFAF, relied without restraint on the influence and firepower of the NFL. Cricket, non-existent in the United States, plays on another register: the immensity of its community, the largest in the sporting movement on social networks.
For individual sports, anything is possible. A favorite emerges: breaking. The IOC wanted it for the Paris 2024 Games, after the success experienced by the discipline at the 2018 Youth Games in Buenos Aires. It's hard to imagine Thomas Bach turning his back on it for the 2028 Los Angeles Games where, even more than next year in Paris, the program will have to seduce young people and bring them back into the Olympic family.
