Summer Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 Sports Programme Road to LA 2028

[Roamingrover86 968]

2 hours ago, Dragon said:

This is going a very tricky decision for the ICC.

You can't really use the current world rankings because ranking points will be won or lost against teams that are not eligible for the Olympics.

I think that any country who fails to qualify because will launch an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport and probably win.

 

So here's what I suggest for the six.

 

1 Possible host country place - USA - but only possible - what you do is recalculate the ICC rankings and take out all points gained against non-Olympic teams.

Then once you done this and taken out non-Olympic countries like West Indies and either England and Scotland then if the USA are in a high enough ranking position they qualify. This position could be as high as 10th or as low as 20th depending on how important the IOC and ICC see their presence in LA.

(I'm assuming that, like in curling and women's soccer Great Britain would nominate either England or Scotland as their official qualifying representatives)

USA are currently 18th

 

2 2026 World T20 champions

 

3 and 4 Asia-Pacific qualifying tournament winners and runners-up

 

5 and 6 Euro-Africa-Americas qualifying tournament winners and runners-up

 

(7) If the USA don't meet the qualifying standard then a play off between the 3rd place teams in the 2 above categories decides the final qualifiers

 

The qualifying tournament would be held under IOC eligibility rules not the ICC rules

Excellent suggestion & perhaps the most logical one. I think IOC & ICC will approve on a similar format. 
I would just tweak it a little bit. 

I won’t give a guaranteed host quota but allot 2 quotas in Americas-Africa qualifying tournament. 
Also Europe will have 1 fixed quota from their qualifying tournament. 

So , it will be 

 

1 - 2016 T20 world champions

2&3 - Asian- Oceania qualifying tournament 

4&5 - Americas-Africa qualifying tournament

6- European qualifying tournament 

 

 

Edited April 10, 2025 by Roamingrover86

[intoronto 6,892]

At 6 teams there should be no a rule a minimum 3 continents should be represented 

[Roamingrover86 968]

It was always going to be difficult for IOC to get new events in & stick to their 10,500  limit. I wish they could have increased it to 12,000 but they did find a way out by limiting the quota to core sports ONLY. I see that as a very positive & well thought out by both LOC & IOC. 
 

I have mixed feelings on these changes but overall can’t complain much as it could have been worse.

The good part: 

 

1. Compound Archery will be a great addition to the programme albeit only in mixed team event. Sadly this means losing quotas from Recurve, which will make the qualification process more challenging. 

 

2. TT events : Getting the doubles event is an excellent call plus we have a team event too . The men’s & women’s team events were so predictable. This 3 format will throw up opportunities & surprises . Most importantly it will add to the viewing experience as matches are expected to be tighter & shorter. 
 

3. Basketball 3x3 is a growing sport & increasing the number of teams is certainly the right call. It was expected. 
 

4. Sport climbing : The programme looks complete now & again on expected lines.

 

The OK part: 

 

1. Boxing : Keeping the total quota places same & increasing a single weight class in women’s event was expected. 
 

2. Additional swimming events : Considering the hosts for the next two olympics are swimming dominant nations. This was expected. 
 

3. Mixed Golf : This is a good idea & will be an intresting event to watch.

 

The Bad part: 

 

1. Football : if you are so worried about maintaining the quota limit why not just make both events a 12 team one. I can understand the reduction in men’s but increase the women’s team event. 
 

2. Athletics : This change doesn’t make much sense. Perhaps an additional 🥇 for  . Why would you take away a race walking event only to replace it with another track event. 
 

3. Tennis : I don’t like this idea of mixed team , XD was a better format for me. 
 

4. Gymnastics: A mixed team event  will not add anything to the programme. Perhaps again a lot to do with the LOC than FIG or IOC. 
 

 

 

 

[phelps 8,695]

18 hours ago, NearPup said:

Eh, not sure I agree. The team events are basically a free gold medal for China, so they are trading two free gold medals for one free gold medal and two likely gold medals. Doubles is a format where upsets are much more likely to happen than team matches.

 

Either way, I think from a spectator standpoint it is a win. The doubles tournaments will be much more interesting than the team tournaments were.

to me, every TT and Diving event is just a free gold for  

it's time to cut down the number of those events...and not by only a few

[Dragon 2,066]

To point out a mistake in the document.

They say Artistic Swimming is back to being a women only sport. That is not true, men are still allowed to compete

[MatiReimundo 509]

10 hours ago, JoshMartini007 said:

So here are the difference between 2024 and 2028 and my opinions:

 

Aquatics

In swimming the 50m backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly were added while the women's water polo tournament will now have 12 teams. Additionally, 11 men's athlete quotas were transferred to the women's side.

 

In general, I'm okay with the 50m events and despite women's water polo having shallow depth I am happy they are now equal to the men. The IOC still wanting to keep the core sport quotas to 10,500 is a bit ridiculous, but I'll go into that at the end. While the athlete split isn't shown for the disciplines it's quite likely swimming loses 11 men and women quotas each (maybe they might take a couple from diving/marathon swimming).

 

 

Archery

Mixed compound team was added.

 

I've been a big supporter for compound archery being added to the Olympics. Unfortunately the individual events were not added which I dislike. If you are going to have athletes in team event then they can also compete in the individual. I would like to imagine World Archery is slowly bringing the event in. Since no new athlete quotas were added recurve will have fewer archers competing. I imagine recurve will be a 48-52 person tournament. 

 

 

Athletics

Mixed marathon walk relay was removed, mixed 4x100m relay was added.

 

I feel the program has become worse with this change. Not that I felt the walk relay is important, it's not and I wish we would get the 35/50km walk, but at least it preserved some race walk. The mixed 4x100m relay adds nothing extra to the program. This will be repeated a few times, but a mixed event should not be added with the gender component unless if fundamentally changes the event. There's no need to have both a men's/women's and a mixed 4x100m relay.

 

 

Basketball

The 3x3 events will be a 12 team tournament. The athlete quota has increased by 32.

 

Great move. It was ridiculous that the event only had 8 teams so the increase was much needed. Honestly, if we weren't stuck on the 10,500 athlete limit I wouldn't mind seeing 16 teams.

 

 

Boxing

Women saw an increase of one event, equaling that of men (7 each). The weight limits of each category was slightly adjusted.

 

Equaling the event size between genders was expected and I'm glad they decided to increase the women's count rather than reducing the men. The women's athlete quota remains the same despite the event increase, but still remains the same as the men.

 

 

Football

The men's tournament was reduced to 12 teams, the women's tournament increased to 16 teams.

 

I'm glad the women's tournament is up to 16 teams. The qualification system for Europe has been brutal and I imagine Asia will be happy too. I wished they didn't reduce the men's tournament, but the 10,500 athlete quota limit forces them to do so. Ultimately, I agree with the move as the women's tournament is more prestigious.

 

 

Golf

Mixed team was added.

 

I await the chosen format, but ultimately I think it's a good idea to have the event.

 

 

Gymnastics

Mixed artistic team was added.

 

What a weird event. As mentioned before since the men's and women's team remain this is a useless event that doesn't need to included.

 

 

Modern pentathlon

The athlete quotas has been reduced by 8 (4 men and 4 women).

 

This was likely done to reach the 10,500 quota limit. Overall I dislike it, but it's not the end of the world.

 

 

Rowing

Lightweight double sculls have been removed. Coastal single sculls and coastal mixed double sculls have been added.

 

I'm not familiar with coastal sprint canoe, but from what I've seen in videos I think it will be a nice event to have. Losing lightweight double sculls is a bit of a shame and I'm not sure I would make that trade given that coastal rowing isn't well developed yet.

 

 

Shooting

Mixed team skeet was removed, mixed team trap was added.

 

The mixed team shotgun events continue to be cycled. Considering they don't use any additional quotas, I don't see why they don't just have both at the Olympics.

 

 

Sport climbing

The combined event was removed and replaced by separate lead and bouldering events. 8 additional athlete quotas were added.

 

Finally the sport has its proper individual events. I still commend the strategy of going with the combined event in 2020 as a type of Trojan horse with the idea that the IOC will want to keep it.

 

 

Table tennis

The men's and women's team events were removed. Men's and women's doubles and mixed team were added.

 

As a person who likes doubles table tennis I am happy with this change. To keep the athlete quota consistent mixed team is almost necessary.

 

 

Tennis

Mixed doubles was removed. Mixed event was added.

 

While I wasn't a big fan of the mixed doubles event (it's barely played during the ATP/WTA calendar, I don't think we need it replaced by a mixed event. The format hasn't been revealed, but I imagine it would be similar to the Davis/BJK Cup format. My fear is if they're attempting to add the event to the second week as I imagine many players will opt-out.

 

 

LA Only Sports

Baseball/Softball, Cricket, Flag Football, and Lacrosse will be 6-team tournaments and Squash will have 32 athletes (16 men, 16 women).

 

While expected, I am very disappointed that the team sports will only have six teams. You can't showcase the sport really well with such few entrants. Cricket is a great example, there are many smaller nations which play the sport, but we are likely to see only the large nations compete. Squash only having 16 athletes is also a bit small, but it's at least manageable. 

 

 

Final Thoughts

Some good, some bad moves overall. I need to stress that the 10,500 athlete limit among core sports while increasing the number of events is not sustainable. The 2000 Olympics had around 10,600 athletes yet only had 300 events. We now have 341 core events, an increase of 14%. Even if you want to argue that there was bloat in 2000, the 2024 Olympics had 327 core events, meaning we had an increase of 4% yet no new athlete quotas. While some of these new events don't need more athletes, some of them do. Honestly at minimum the athlete quota for core events needs to be increased to 11,000 while more realistically we should be closer to 12,000. If the IOC doesn't want that many athletes then they need to remove events/sports.

The tennis would likely be the United Cup format. 1 singles mens match, 1 singles womens and the mixed, best of three.

 

Which if this is the case, it would be impossible to make players compete in a team event, singles and doubles in only one week (and especially coming from the grass to hard).

 

Due to this is very likely that tennis could go for 2 complete weeks, which if that happen we will see a lot of players not playing the olympics, which is not good. 2 weeks without playing for the points and money of the professional tour is impossible except for the top 10-20.

 

The only good is that in the LA dates there are no big tournaments, only 250, and the olympics could be a preparation for the US/Canada month ending in the US open so players will not have the excuse of the surface like last year.

[Dragon 2,066]

Also this from a journalist friend who asked the IOC about whether the mixed tennis event would be mixed doubles or a mixed team event.

Simple answer - they don't know yet. The ITF are still to decide

[JoshMartini007 2,861]

I hope it was a typo and they mean mixed doubles.

 

Unless they bring back ranking points (they should regardless) I imagine the team event will be sparsely attended. I just hope players declining to participate won't spread to the singles/doubles events.

[Laraja 1,522]

Do you have any idea, when we will start seeing the official documents? I am quite curious to see the changes in the qualifications

[NearPup 4,172]

1 hour ago, Dragon said:

To point out a mistake in the document.

They say Artistic Swimming is back to being a women only sport. That is not true, men are still allowed to compete

Oh, that's good. I don't expect any men to compete still, but it's a positive that they have the opportunity to.