2023-10-16 12:24:31
The flagship sport of the Indian subcontinent, approved by the IOC this Monday, October 16, constitutes one of the innovations of the Californian edition, which should include an unprecedented total of around thirty disciplines.
The program promises to be particularly generous. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved this Monday, October 16, the arrival of cricket at the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the main innovation intended to attract new audiences. “Cricket has more than 2.5 billion fans around the world and represents an extraordinary opportunity to engage new countries and new communities, including the host country of this session: India,” praised Austrian Karl Stoss, President of the Olympic Program Commission.
The sport with 120 million practitioners worldwide only made a brief appearance at the Olympic Games, during the Parisian edition of 1900, during a match won by the English against the French.
Popular throughout the Commonwealth, particularly in the Indian subcontinent, this batting sport can already hope to be repeated at the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane, before perhaps definitively integrating the Olympic program. Especially since India, the largest country to have ever hosted the Olympic Games, took advantage of the opening ceremony of the session to present its candidacy for the 2036 edition on Saturday.
Decision postponed on boxing
Cricket is not the only sport to join the Olympic program in four years. Baseball/softball, already present between 1992 and 2008 then in Tokyo in 2021, will also make its return. Los Angeles will also mark the arrival of squash, flag football – a sport similar to American football where tackles are replaced by the tearing off of scarves – and lacrosse, a team sport derived from Native American cultures.
The IOC also confirmed the inclusion of skateboarding, surfing and climbing, both of which arrived at the 2020 Olympics as “additional sports” and renewed by Parisian organizers, in the initial Olympic program alongside the 28 established disciplines .
Exit, on the other hand, breaking, which will take its first Olympic steps at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris but was not selected by Los Angeles, although the IOC has often highlighted its appeal for a young and urban audience and the lack of equipment it requires.
Concretely, the Olympic Program Commission meeting in Bombay until Tuesday validates up to five “additional sports” proposed by the organizers of the Los Angeles Games, disciplines supposed to reflect a local tradition and which have no guarantee of returning to the Next games.
The new arrivals bring the number of sports on the Los Angeles program to 35, even 36, a historic record, since the IOC has at the same time confirmed the maintenance of two disciplines in the spotlight – modern pentathlon and weightlifting. There remains the question of boxing, a discipline in the hot seat. “We want boxing on the program. We have no problem with boxing or the boxers, just a huge problem with its governing body,” Thomas Bach clarified on Friday, leaving little doubt about the long-term maintenance of the discipline. The IOC has in fact definitively withdrawn its recognition from the international federation (IBA) after a cascade of scandals, and is waiting to see if World Boxing, a young organization initiated by the American federation, manages to bring together enough countries to replace it.
Verse from JO of sport?
Discredited by accusations of animal abuse at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the modern pentathlon has for its part saved its place thanks to the replacement of its equestrian event with a show jumping course carried out on foot, contested by purists but potentially more telegenic .
Weightlifting, undermined by doping to the point of representing more than a quarter of positive tests in the history of the Olympic Games, owes its Olympic survival to the fact of having entrusted its anti-doping program to the International Testing Agency, Thomas said. Bach.
Finally, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is considering creating an esports Olympic Games, the president of the body, Thomas Bach, declared on Saturday during the 141st IOC Session in Bombay. The head of the Olympics stressed that three billion people play esports and video games around the world. It is estimated that more than 500 million of them are specifically interested in esports, which includes virtual sports and sports simulations.
#Cricket #squash #flag #football #Los #Angeles #Olympic #Games #full #events #Libération