Cricket Among Five New Sports Added For The 2028 Summer Olympics In Los Angeles

On Monday, International Olympic Committee (IOC) members voted in favour of five new sports that will be added to the schedule for the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles.

The five sports set to be added are cricket, flag football, squash, lacrosse and baseball/softball. The IOC meeting took place in Mumbai and the five new sports got the go-ahead from all but two of the delegates that placed a vote.

Cricket's inclusion in the 2028 Olympics will see the sport return to the games for the first time since its sole inclusion in 1900. It is expected that there will be a Twenty20 tournament for both men and women with potentially six teams, including the United States as hosts, competing.

However, the details on the number of competing teams have not yet been finalised, nor have the specifics of the qualification process.

IOC President, Thomas Bach, spoke on why cricket would be involved in the 2028 Olympics. He stated: "We see the growing popularity of cricket, particularly the T20 format. "The Olympic Games will give cricket a global stage and the opportunity to grow beyond the traditional cricket countries and region(s)."

Chief executive officer of England and Wales Cricket Board, Richard Gould, expressed his delight at the announcement, saying: "This is a great opportunity to take cricket to new parts of the world, and to allow more people to develop a love for our sport."

Gould added: "In particular I'm delighted that the games will feature both men's and women's cricket and have no doubt that featuring in the Olympics will accelerate the continuing and rapid growth of the women's game."

Cricket being played in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles will be another major step in helping grow the sport in the United States. Before the 2028 Olympic games, the United States will co-host the 2024 ICC Men's T20 World Cup alongside West Indies and as one of the hosts, the United States will field a team to compete in the tournament.

Other sports set to return for the 2028 Olympics include baseball/softball. Baseball will be the men's sport in the Olympics and softball will be the equivalent sport for women. Both baseball and softball were played at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, however, neither sport will be played at next year's Olympics in Paris.

Baseball was first played at the 1904 Olympics as a demonstration event before becoming an official sport at the 1992 Olympics, whilst softball was first included at the games in 1996 as an Olympic sport.

Lacrosse will also be making a comeback at the 2028 Olympics, having been included five times previously, the last occurring at the 1948 games. However, the 2028 Olympics will be the first time in the 1908 games that lacrosse will be included as an official medal sport, as on the previous three occasions it was included at an Olympics, the sport was a demonstration event.

The sixes format will be used for lacrosse at the games and revolves around six players per side competing across four quarters each lasting eight minutes. Sixes is a quicker version of lacrosse that was introduced to appeal to more people around the world.

Flag football is among the sports set to be debuted for the very first time at the 2028 Olympics. The sport is a non-contact form of American football and will be played with five players per side and will revolve around the players having to pull the flag off an opponent instead of tackling them to the ground.

The other sport that will make its first appearance at the Los Angeles Olympics in five years' time is squash. This is a long time coming for the sport, as many previous attempts at joining the Olympics were rejected in favour of other sports such as skateboarding, climbing, surfing and breakdancing.