Sports That Missed Paris Olympics But Will Feature At LA 2028

Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics for the third time in 2028 after 1932 and 1984. It will be the first time the city hosts the Paralympic Games. The City of Angels is set to be the third three-time host city in Olympics history (London in 1908, 1948 and 2012; Paris in 1900, 1924 and 2024) and the first non-European city to do so.

Five sports will be featured in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics that were not included in the Paris Olympics. Here are those sports: 

Flag football

Flag football is a no-contact sport and will be making its debut at the 2028 LA Olympics. Flag football is similar to usual football but with some modifications, namely a smaller field, less players (5-on-5 from 12-person squads), two 20-minute halves and no kickoffs (play starts at the team’s own five-yard line).

America is a dominant force in flag football, having won the last four men’s world championships and the last two women’s world championships. 

In the women’s game, Mexico is considered to be a team that could upset the USA as they beat the Americans in the final of the 2022 World Flag Football Games.

Baseball/Softball

While Baseball/Softball did not make the cut at the Paris Olympics 2024, the games will feature at 2028 LA Olympics. Both sports are not entirely new to the Games. Baseball was included as a medal event at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics and softball at 1996 Atlanta Olympics.  

In the men’s event , Cuba won the gold medal in baseball’s Olympic debut and went on to win it three times in total before the sport was nixed for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Softball, on the other hand, has been dominated by American women. The US won the first three gold medals for the sport and enjoyed a 22-game winning streak before losing to Japan in the final at the 2008 Games. Neither sport was featured at Paris 2024.

Originally marked as separate sports at the Olympics, baseball and softball returned as a combined sport with two distinct events (men’s baseball and women’s softball) at theTokyo 2020 Olympics, where hosts Japan won both gold medals.

Cricket

Cricket has only made one previous appearance at the Olympics, and that was over a century ago at the first Paris Games in 1900. There are three official formats for cricket, according to the International Cricket Council: test matches, One-Day Internationals (ODI) and Twenty20 Internationals (T20).

While Test cricket is considered the “traditional form” of the game and ODI is the preferred format, the 2028 LA Olympics will feature the T20I format, which is the “newest, shortest and fastest form of the game,” usually taking about three hours.

The only difference between men’s cricket and women’s cricket is that the women use a slightly smaller and lighter ball.

Lacrosse

Often considered to be America’s oldest team sport, lacrosse will be back in 2028 after a 120-year hiatus. The sport was part of 1904 St. Louis Games and the 1908 London Games before making appearances as a “demonstration sport” in 1928, 1932 (the first time L.A. hosted the games) and 1948.

A whopping three nations have ever competed in Olympic lacrosse, and in the two Games it was included in, Canada took gold twice.

At the next Games, a slightly modified version of “lax” will be featured; regular lacrosse — known as field lacrosse — consists of two teams of ten players with faceoffs occurring at the start of the game and after each goal. In 2028, players will contest in World Lacrosse Sixes, which is played on a smaller field with less players and, like the T20I format in cricket, takes less time than a regular match.

Also Read: Top 10 Best Rugby Players in the World in 2024

Squash

Squash is the only other sport besides flag football making its debut in 2028, although it was featured as a demonstration sport at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018.

There are no caveats to the squash event; it will be squash as you know it.