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THE International Olympic Committee Executive Board held a short meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland, on Wednesday, where it provided information on the French Alps 2030 Winter Games and the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Games, including important updates on the athlete quota and events programme for the latter.
Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi began by sharing that the IOC and the French Alps 2030 organising committee had signed the Host Contract and are now formally working together on the Winter Games in under five years time.
“We are extremely happy with this, it is a very symbolic day for us.
“The contract was to be signed at this stage,” said Dubi.
“As you know, there were a number of conditions that were discussed by the IOC session in July last year and those conditions have now been met with additional guarantees provided most recently by the French prime minister, François Bayrou, as well as the two presidents of the regions.”
IOC Sports Director Kit McConnell then broke down a series of important updates regarding the event program and athlete quotas at the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Games.
The largest takeaway was that it will have the same overall athlete quota as the Paris 2024 Summer Games, of up to 10 500, but significantly, with a quota of 5 333 for women athletes and 5 167 for men athletes, it will be the first Olympics in history to have more women than men.
“All of the events and the finalisation of the athlete quotas were done with a clear consideration about adding value to the games,” said McConnell.
“Value in terms of reaching out to international audiences through the broadcast and digital partnerships and also value locally for the organising committee in terms of the impact on the ticketing and the spectator program in Los Angeles.”
The additional sports add 322 female athletes and 376 male athletes. In addition, six mixed events were added to the event programme. Out of 351 events, there are 161 women’s events, 165 men’s events and 25 mixed events.
This unprecedented milestone for gender equality was highlighted in the executive board’s decision to reverse the quota for men’s and women’s football teams.
Traditionally, there have been 16 men’s teams and 12 women’s teams, but this will be flipped in Los Angeles, with 16 women’s teams and 12 men’s teams.
“This reflects the growth of women’s football around the world. It is one of the most popular, fastest growing forms of sport around the world,” said McConnell. “ We’ve seen incredible growth in women’s participation in team sport and popularity and visibility of women’s team sport with women’s football being an absolute leader in that regard.”
McConnell outlined numerous event programme updates that were approved at the executive board meeting on Wednesday, including the following additions:
A mixed team compound event in archery
A mixed team event in table tennis
A mixed artistic gymnastics team event
A mixed team golf event
A 4x100m mixed relay in athletics
50m backstroke, butterfly, breaststroke events for each gender
Additionally, women’s water polo quota will be increased from 10 to 12 teams to ensure full gender equality and align with the number of men’s water polo teams.
Boxing, recently reassured of its Olympic future by the IOC, will have seven women’s events and seven men’s events after an additional women’s event was added.
Other updates included the basketball three-on-three event being boosted to 32 teams after its success in Paris and three coastal rowing events on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic programme: one individual male event, one individual female event and one mixed event.
For the first time, there will be individual medals for three sport climbing disciplines: speed, lead, and boulder, which will have at least 12 athletes in each.
The racewalk programme was confirmed with two individual events but no mixed racewalk relay which featured in Paris while the modern pentathlon quota will be reduced with specifics set to be outlined in an IOC release expected to be shared imminently. – insidethegames.com/Sports Reporter.
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