IOC session in Mumbai: Climate change threatens the Winter Games

DrThe Summer Olympics will be even bigger in the future. After the IOC Executive Board collectively approved the five sports proposed by Los Angeles for the 2028 Summer Games at its meeting in Mumbai, IOC Sports Director Kate McConnell confirmed that the number of participants in California reached 10,500 athletes should exceed.

“This is what the package entails,” McConnell said Friday. Among the sports proposed by Los Angeles that still need approval by the IOC General Assembly, which begins Sunday, are softball, baseball, lacrosse, soccer and cricket, four team sports. “The package fits the target groups wonderfully,” McConnell said. “But it is a package proposed by the Los Angeles organizing committee for these games only. This does not mean that it is a precedent for the future.”

The approximate upper limit was part of IOC President Thomas Bach’s “Agenda 2020”, through which a series of targets were formulated in 2014, about a year after Bach’s election. As part of these proposals, Olympic host countries were given the opportunity to propose sports for their version of the Games. At Tokyo 2021, softball, baseball, karate, surfing, skiing and climbing were Olympic sports, with a total of about 11,483 athletes participating in the Games, more than ever before.

Next year in Paris, karate, softball and baseball will not be on the program, but rather the competitive version of break dancing. Climbing, surfing and skiing have already become an integral part of the 2016 Summer Games. For Paris, the IOC expects to adhere to the number of 10,500 athletes identified as an “approximate upper limit”.

However, for 2028, “clearly we have to go beyond 10,500. We have to debate to what extent,” McConnell said. Quota locations should be decided at the start of 2025. The organizing committee for the 2028 Games has proposed that six women’s and men’s teams compete against each other. Some have Olympic medals for each of the team sports offered.