JoshMartini007

Since they don't have a separate sports federation within the sport the issue can be avoided though I guess nothing is stopping World Rugby from admitting the Maori Nation as a national federation. In the end non-member nations shouldn't be allowed to compete, but that won't stop the bad PR from coming. They can't even compromise and say they can compete as a second team under a NOC because a) their land spans through Canada and the United States and b) the nation will not accept this.

What's the strength of Australia/United States/Others? This looks really good for our future.

I think the IOC/LA28 stepped into a minefield by letting lacrosse in. There is going to be a lot of negative press once it is announced they won't be allowed to compete. Also setting the precedent of non-NOCs competing would open up such a can of worms in the future.

Some athletic stadiums could squeeze in a cricket field, but it depends on how much extra space was left outside the long ends of the track.

I think they're overestimating the depth from the West Indies. Once you get past the other Caribbean nations are not relevant. Cricket's issue is not interest as there are enough nations which compete at a high level it's the sport-specific venues required (like baseball/softball). Unfortunately, you can't fit a cricket field in a football stadium.

You get weird situations where the current Winnipeg Jets use to be from Atlanta and the team in Utah was originally the Winnipeg Jets before they moved to Arizona.

Cross-sport participation exists. We have athletic athletes participating in bobsled and cyclists participating in speed skating

Handball has their World Championships in December/January while men's ice hockey is in May, schedules can be weird

Just create a sub-event and call it "snow cross-country" if that is all it will take for it to be permissible at the Winter Olympics.

Sport teams are like companies in North America. Here they moved their headquarters and are in the middle of rebranding.

We also have artistic swimming and figure skating. Dancing will be a part of the Olympics, even if DanceSport never returns.

Yeah, the sport/event program needs to be able to change as trends and interest change. With that said, once an event is added it should stay for a while (only exception is demonstration events). The addition/removal of an event should be a well thoughtful and researched process and not be done on a whim.

Panama is also likely influenced by the United States, thanks to the large military base by the canal. In fact, most of the top nations have US military bases in their borders where military personnel brought exposure to American Football.

There's still a long way to go. Of the 42 members of World Boxing the following actually competed at the 2024 Olympics. . That's 20/68 nations, including refugees. Medal-wise they represent 14/52 medals. There's still quite a few major nations missing, but there's enough here for them to have some legitimacy. I imagine the nations are in a wait and see mode to see the first few competitions play out.

Proclaiming the removal of multiple sports was always going to bring on the ire of fans. It does bring an interesting thought experiment in the event the Olympics gets "Thanos snapped." Which of the 165 events would survive and still feel like the Olympics? Do you completely toss out many sports or do you try to save as many as possible?

It'll probably return when the United States hosts the next Olympics. Maybe Canada if IFAF lobbies hard enough The advantage it has over baseball and cricket is the field size is a lot smaller and can be hosted in more multipurpose venues (less cost to host). The downside over baseball/cricket is that it doesn't attract many "smaller nations." Only Israel and Panama compete at a high level.

Yeah, you're better off going with men's softball than trying to bring women's baseball to the Olympics

Unpopular opinion (even for me): Remove rowing eights When the world championship struggles to find double digit entrants you know the event is not global enough for the Olympics. I hate to say it, but the numbers don't lie. It is by far the least played event on the Olympic schedule.

I'd like to cram as many events as possible. Obviously you can't do team events solo and I would avoid combat sports from a safety perspective. Plus the modern pentathlon and triathlon would by redundant. I'd make it 16 events, one per day where the Ultimate Olympian is crowned at the closing ceremony. I'll have to think about which ones to include.

Fun. In the past I've done something similar except I just assumed the highest ranked athlete/team qualified. I've also did the same for the Commonwealth Nations and former Soviet Nations (not as in 2024 exciting without Russia).

There's no easy answer for this and can sometimes get a bit philosophical. "What is a woman?" "Does the sport classification of a woman differ?" "If so, in what ways?" "Do some biological women not fit the definition of a sports classification woman?" "Can some trans women fit the definition of a sports classification woman?" Not a fun exercise...

That won't be fully finalized until early 2026, likely after the Winter Olympics

Only a matter of time before short course swimming is added. Just imagine, swimming during the entire Olympics

If Canada ever wants to make the jump into the top 10, expanding our sport strength sphere is key. Now we need to win multiple medals in more sports. The added sports for 2028 benefit us. Lacrosse should be two easy medals while we'll have a great chance in softball. If we can qualify in baseball we could sneak a medal. Flag football could be an option if we focus on it (let's see how we do at the World Championships later this month). Qualifying might be difficult as Mexico is pretty good.

Here's a comparison of how nations performed between 2020 and 2024. More Gold Medals +7 +6 +5 +5 +3 South Korea recovered well after a poor 2020 while France benefited greatly from being the host nation. The Netherlands and Uzbekistan see their increase investment in sport yield good results. Fewer Gold Medals -20 -8 -7 -5 -4 -3 -3 Obviously Russia was going to have the least amount of golds, even accounting for they did not win a single gold. Despite having similar amount of medals as 2020, Great Britain just couldn't convert them to gold this time. The same can be said for Brazil. Japan loses out in their host nation boost while economic troubles continues to hurt Cuba. More Total Medals +31 +13 +12 +8 +7 +6 +5 +5 France with the host boost saw a huge jump in total medals. Despite only getting 1 more gold medal compared to 2020, the United States wins an additional 13 medals. As with the gold medals, South Korea saw a nice increase in total medals as well. Uzbekistan and Australia saw nice increases. North Korea is only here because they did not participate in 2020. One can only imagine their increase had they attempted to qualify during the entire period as oppose to the second half. Fewer Total Medals -70 -13 -7 -6 -6 -5 -5 -5 Russia got banned and lost out on almost all their medals. Again, Japan lost its host boost. Ukraine suffered from the war while the other nations face either economic issues or returned to the mean after a great 2020.