NearPup

Oh, def happier with that outcome. Would be good prep for 2030.

Good to see qualify, especially in a tournament with NHLers their absence would have been felt.

Do we know who will get the bonus spot if/when is banned? I’m assuming it will go by ranking and it will be ? Which seems like sort of a lame way to do it but w/e.

Yay, the best fans in hockey :D

Rugby 7s is definitively a much better "mini" version of Rugby than Flag Football is of American Football.

Wrong province

Football is football after all!

I feel like should be disqualified, they aren’t a real LATAM country. This is an obvious competitive advantage. Hopefully the media will pick up on this outrageous anti-Latino discrimination.

She’s a kid in surfing terms, she still likely has at least three or four Olympics ahead of her.

Oh that must be why wins like 0.5 gold medals per Olympics :P

Obviously won gold because they are rich and won silver because we have nukes pointed towards Lausane.

I think the only question marks for automatic host quotas in team sports are 3x3 (since neither Japan nor France got host quotas in both) and cricket. I really can't imagine the US won't get host quotas in handball and field hockey. The men's field hockey team is definitively good enough to warrent a host quota IMO, they finished a respectable 4th at the last Pan-am games and kept it reasonably close agaisnt both Argentina and Canada.

That’s my read of what happened, too.

Cricket makes sense imo, 2028 was the first time the ICC made a serious effort to get it included in the Olympics. And Cricket is firmly a sport that the Olympics needs to include to stay relevant in one of the fastest growing market in the world.

Given the inclusion of squash and cricket I do wonder how much of a thumb on the scale the IOC had in this process.

Especially given both the US and Canadian governments are backing the move to allow the Haudenosaunee to compete. The IOC has set themselves up in a position where it could be a PR nightmare no matter what they do.

If they aren't allowed to compete independently (and tbh I don't expect they will) they will likely refuse to compete at all. The Haudenosaunee players have a fairly strong aversion for competing for either Canada or the US.

Banned? He should be executed! He's a traitor to his King!

Of those: I have no justification for Lacrosse or Flag Football. If Cricket isn't popular enough to justify being in the Olympic then we have to cut most sports from the Olympics. The main justifications I can see for Baseball not being deserving of an Olympic spot is that the women's game is extremely underdeveloped (to the point that Softball is substituted as a women's version) and that the top pros have never taken part in the Olympics. But Baseball is one of the most developed and competitive team sport in the world on the men's side. It definitively dwarfs exisitng Olympic team sports like Water Polo, Handball and Field Hockey. The main reason I think breaking being in the Olympics would make sense as a permanent inclusion is that it's dirt cheap to host - very few athletes, relatively few officials, very easy to produce for TV and re-using an exisitng venue. It really doesn't need to have very much appeal to be worth it.

I actually think is going to be favourites to win both the men's and women's events The format at the Olympics is sixes, which isn't the same as the traditional outdoor lacrosse format. It has a lot of elements that make it more similar to box lacrosse (an indoor version of lacrosse played on a pitch the size of an ice hockey rink), and that's a version of the game Canada absolutely dominated. ...but ya, and are almost locks for the gold medal game in both the men's and women's event. If the Haudenosaunee are allowed to compete then there is a real chance there could be a North American sweep in the men's event.

Where I personally draw the line would be including sports that *can* be played on ice or snow, as long as they actually are played on ice or snow at the Winter Olympics. So I would be in favour of cross country running or cyclocross as long as a large part of the playing field for both is covered in snow and part of the challenge includes navigating winter conditions. Also why I'm in favour of snow volleyball being considered. (I'm also a big fan of including ice climbing in the winter Olympics, but I think that's a less controversial idea with regard to it being a "real" winter sport)

I believe so, yes. My reaction is because the steeplechase is my favourite event in the summer Olympics (and IMO more fun to watch than XC) :P

That's kind of how I feel about Lacrosse's inclusion in 2028. Obviously I'm happy it will very, very likely give two medals (and decent chance to win gold in both events), and I also happen to really enjoy watching Lacrosse so I'm happy to have it in the Olympics either way. But can I justify Lacrosse being an Olympic sport, compared to so many other sports? Nope. (And to be clear, I believe Water Polo definitively deserves to be in the Olympics more than Lacrosse does)

I second this.