Cricket and squash are included in the 2028 Olympics – 10/16/2023 – Sport
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The IOC (International Olympic Committee) confirmed this Monday (16) the inclusion of cricket, flag football, lacrosse, squash and baseball-softball in the program for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.
On Friday (13), the Olympic Committee had already announced its intention to include the five sports in the 2028 Olympics, lacking the ratification that came after the directors’ meeting this Monday.
Cricket, the most popular sport in India, which currently hosts the World Cup, will return to the program. He made a single appearance at the Olympics in 1900, in the Paris edition.
Entities that organize cricket tournaments celebrated the sport’s return to the Olympics and said they hoped it would not be a one-off appearance.
It took two years of intense negotiations for the inclusion of the game, which has 2.5 billion fans around the world and is considered a religion in the Indian subcontinent – where the response to the Olympics is, at best, lukewarm.
The announcement was made in Mumbai, home of cricket’s richest league. “We are thrilled that cricket’s inclusion in the Olympic Games has been confirmed today,” International Cricket Council (ICC) President Greg Barclay said in a statement.
Each host city, in accordance with IOC rules, can request the inclusion of several sports for the edition of the Games they will host.
Baseball has already been presented in several previous editions of the Games, the first of which was in Barcelona 1992. The sport returned to the Olympic program in Tokyo 2020, after being left out in 2012 and 2016, but will not be part of the Paris Games in 2024.
Among the other sports included in the 2028 Games program, squash is one of the most popular in Brazil. The sport bears some resemblance to tennis, with players positioning themselves against a wall with rackets to hit the balls.
Lacrosse is a game similar to field hockey, but with sticks that have a net at the end, while flag football is a type of non-contact American football.
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