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

[Josh 13,633]

6 minutes ago, NearPup said:

No. I’m unhappy they removed a race walk event (even though it def could have used some workshopping).

I loved watching the 50km, and I’m still pissed the IOC is forcing the bullshit mixed team events onto us instead of adding it back. I had some hope, but it clearly didn’t happen. Oh well maybe in 2032. 

 

[NearPup 4,188]

1 hour ago, Josh said:

I loved watching the 50km, and I’m still pissed the IOC is forcing the bullshit mixed team events onto us instead of adding it back. I had some hope, but it clearly didn’t happen. Oh well maybe in 2032. 

 

Given WA isn’t even holding the 50 anymore… I think that particular dream is very dead unless walking gets a very unexpected surge in popularity.

[Biathlonfan 842]

yesssssssssssssssss for 50 meter  Breastroke,if Ruta needs motivation than this is it.

[Dnl 729]

They could take the quata limitation of 10500 and do a switch between those numbers in bold and bam,  you got enough quotas for plenty of other things , it’s just a bad starting point for things like compund to be on the expense of other instead of just getting x amount of quotas and then a place

Edited April 10, 2025 by Dnl

[mrv86 3,269]

My not so brief take on the program:

 

• I would have to see 4x100 medley in swimming removed from the program. Still I think we need more quotas for every event.
• Glad to see women's water polo expanded to 12 teams.
• Please remove women's artistic team and just leave a 24 women's and 12 mixed duets in the program; their quotas given to Open Water and Diving.
• I'm glad they decided to add the mixed compound events, but at the same time I'm afraid that would take the recurve teams to be contested by only 8 teams per gender, or even try a 2 person team format of which I'm not a fan.
• Great another change at the Race Walk events and another mixed relay that serves for nothing, FUCK YOU COE!!!!
• Good thing they expanded 3x3 basketball tournaments, but 16 or 20 teams per gender would have been better.
• Boxing with less than 20 competitors per event is a complete miss.
• Canoe sprint distances still doesn't make any sense, particularly women's C1.
• Just drop the idiocy that is Kayak Cross and bring back the C2 boats.
• BMX quotas in both racing and freestyle should be raised to 20 and 32 respectively.
• For God's sake, ¿couldn't they have 36 places for each event in fencing? And please add an extra place for the "reserve" in team events.
• Keep football tournaments at 12 teams per gender, add 3 players to each roster.
• Golf should have its quota droped to 48 per gender; tired of seing top players just refusing to attend the Olympics; plus it would really save some time from the long daily schedule. And make the mixed team a separate event with a direct face-off format.
• ¿Mixed team in artistic gymnastics? Watanabe should stop taking those pills. And since there are now more specialists per apparatus, then please distribute the quotas according to the individual events.
• Increase the number of individual gymnasts in rhytmic gymnastics and in trampoline gymnastics.
• Drop mixed team from judo.
• Modern pentathlon is sure to be axed sure; not only the insist in the "ninja warrior" format, but they cut the number of quotas. Pathetic.
• Glad to see lightweights in rowing gone, but I would say that a double sculls beach sprint per each gender should been a better option than singles and mixed sculls.
• Make the air pistol and rifle open events, as the level of men and women is similar. Then drop the mixed teams, and bring back the prone rifle and 50m pistol for men, plus a similar event of the later for women.
• ¿Could some one explain why do we need Park & Street events in skateboard? Leave the most visually attractive in with 30 quotas per gender, distribute the others.
• Glad to see they dropped that silly combined format for sports climbing, but they should add more quotas.
• Go for 32 quotas per gender for surfing.
• Leave out that mixed team in table tennis.
• Please, just please, add two more weight classes in tae kwon do or just drop it from the program,
• Increase beach volley to 32 teams per gender.
• Stop belittling weightlifting and wrestling, they both need an increase in athlete numbers.
• Increase general athlete quota to 11200, but without considering the temporary additional sports.

[JoshMartini007 2,871]

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.

[Siddhartha Talukdar 263]

34 minutes ago, JoshMartini007 said:

 

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. 

For me, a 6 team tournament for Cricket is not ideal but a good start. Anyways, US don't have an exclusive stadium for cricket and 2024 T20 World Cup was a poor viewing experience because of poor pitches. I don't want automatic quota for the host nation but wish for one qualification spot for the Americas to ensure atleast one island from the West Indies as cricket there has been on a steep decline. Just yesterday, West Indies Women team lost to Scotland in the World Cup qualifier.

I expect Cricket to grow in 2032 in terms of teams, ticket sales if also held in nearby venues like Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide, broadcast revenues. Australia themselves will be serious as they are genuine gold medal contenders especially in the women's game

[Dolby 757]

14 hours ago, NearPup said:

Really hard to see how they design a fair qualification system for cricket given the small number of available quota spots.

With only 6 spots, don't think there is space for Continental qualifiers and Host quota. I would have 2026 World Cup Winner. Three qualifiers (these can be semi-continental with some continents merged) with 1 spot each. Rest 2 to rankings. 

[Orangehair43 317]

Because of Wimbeldon I thought Tennis was moving to the second week anyway? Not sure it will have quite as good attendance starting just a week after Wimbledon ends. (Assuming its finals are the 8th and 9th July). 

[Dragon 2,085]

1 hour ago, Dolby said:

With only 6 spots, don't think there is space for Continental qualifiers and Host quota. I would have 2026 World Cup Winner. Three qualifiers (these can be semi-continental with some continents merged) with 1 spot each. Rest 2 to rankings. 

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

Edited April 10, 2025 by Dragon
added US current ranking