At the International Olympic Committee’s recent session in Mumbai, India it officially ratified five sports being added to the existing 28 core sports for the 2028 Los Angeles summer games.
Of these five, several will be making their first-ever appearance, namely squash and flag football, while others have had a long gap between inclusion – lacrosse in 1904 and 1908, cricket in 1900 and baseball/softball coming back in after a gap since the Tokyo 2021 games.
Until 1992, the IOC allowed sports to be added to the Olympic Games by the local organising committee as “demonstration events”. Under this arrangement, the 1956 Melbourne games included baseball and Australian Rules football. Over the years, a large number of other host cities trialled a variety of sports, but only a few stayed in the games.
