Following a vote by the members of the International Olympic Committee to include the sport in the 2028 Olympics, cricket will compete in the Olympics for the first time since 1900.

Baseball/softball, squash, flag football, and lacrosse have also been approved for Los Angeles.

At the IOC meeting on Monday in Mumbai, only two delegates voted against the new sports.

Both a T20 men’s and women’s tournament are anticipated.

The LA Games’ organizers have suggested a six-team competition, although neither the number of teams nor the qualifications for those teams have been decided.

The sports chosen will “unique” the LA Games, according to IOC President Thomas Bach.

He stated: “The choice of these five new sports is in line with the American sports culture and will showcase iconic American sports to the world, while bringing international sports to the United States.”

The Olympic and Paralympic Games 2028’s sports director, Niccolo Campriani, stated that the committee is “thrilled to be welcoming the world’s second most popular sport.”

The shorter version of cricket was chosen because it was “the ultimate win-win-win,” according to Italian Campriani, who won shooting gold medals at the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games in Beijing.

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Richard Gould, chief executive of the England and Wales Cricket Board, believes that the US Olympics will be the ideal venue for promoting both the men’s and women’s competitions around the world.

Gould stated that “[I] have no doubt that featuring in the Olympics will accelerate the continuing and rapid growth of the women’s game.”

At a later time, the official event schedule and athlete quotas for the extra sports will be decided.

When hosting an Olympic event, host cities might suggest new sports to be included on the schedule.

In June 2024, the United States and the West Indies will co-host the men’s T20 World Cup, and they will both field teams at the LA Games.

The only time cricket has been played at the Olympics was in Paris in 1900, when Great Britain defeated France in a one-off final by 158 runs after the Netherlands and Belgium withdrew.

What other sports have been sanctioned?
In Los Angeles, flag football, a non-contact variation of American football, will make its Olympic debut.

Five-a-side soccer is played on a 30-by-70-yard field, and instead of tackling the player with the ball, players must pull the flag off of him or her.

Squash is the other sport slated to make its debut.

President of the World Squash Federation Zena Wooldridge described the sport as “amazingly dynamic, diverse, and demanding” and “perfectly suited for the Olympic Games.”

The addition of the sport was called a “transformational moment” by England Squash.

Gina Kennedy, the first Englishwoman to win a singles gold medal at the Commonwealth Games, said: “This is a moment that my team-mates and I could only have dreamed of.”

The seventh-ranked player in the world, who is 26 years old, continued, “We are very thrilled that it has come to pass.

Lacrosse has been a part of the summer Olympics six times, however this will be the first time since the London 1908 Games that it will be a medal event.

The format will be sixes, a brand-new, quick-paced discipline developed to support the sport’s 2028 Olympic candidacy and international expansion.

1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona saw the introduction of baseball. The Paris Games in 2024 won’t have the sport, despite it being on the 2020 Tokyo calendar.

The Olympics’ women’s equivalent sport, softball, made its debut in 1996 in Atlanta but will not be featured at that summer’s Games.

Riccardo Fraccari, president of the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC), predicted that when athletes get the chance to “play on the biggest stage in front of a global audience of billions,” the mood in LA will be “electric.”

Boxing’s inclusion is still up for debate.
The IOC agreed with the executive board’s suggestions regarding the modern pentathlon and weightlifting, which were not originally planned to be on the schedule for LA 2028.

Following an incident at the Tokyo Olympics where a coach struck a horse that refused to leap a fence, the International Modern Pentathlon Union (UIPM) decided to substitute obstacle racing for the showjumping event. This resulted in support for the inclusion of modern pentathlon.

The UIPM also seeks to make the sport more affordable by cutting costs and complexity.

Weightlifting will also be included after the IOC acknowledged advancements in its anti-doping measures, but qualification and competition in the sport will still be strictly watched in 2024.

The International Olympic Committee has yet to recognize a new boxing regulating body after removing recognition of the International Boxing Association earlier this year, thus boxing’s participation in the Olympics is still on hold.

Since 1920, boxing has been a part of every Olympics, and it will be in Paris in 2024.