The 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles will offer an extended program with new mixed team events in several renowned sports, including golf and gymnastics.
The International Olympic Committee announced on Wednesday the new mixed events when it unveiled the entire sports program for the 2028 summer games. They will help bring a touch of team to the Olympic golf course, which previously presented only the individual male and female competition, and a new dimension in gymnastics, where team competitions at the Olympic Games had been divided by gender.
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The IOC will also be launched a mixed 4×100 relay on the athletics track, to accompany the mixed 4×400 which was challenged during the last two editions of the summer Olympic Games.
“Mixed events are a real embodiment of gender equality – men and women in competition in the same team, on the same playground for their country,” said IOC sports director, Kit McConnell, during a press conference. “We have seen the real success of these (mixed events). They bring something incredibly special to the athletes involved.”
Mixed team events are rare in golf course and gymnastics, but not entirely unknown. At the golf course, the Grant Thornton Invitational has been challenged since 2023 and includes 16 teams, each composed of a player each of the PGA and LPGA tours. And in gymnastics, there is the DTB Pokal Mixed Cup in which men and women compete in mixed gender teams.
McConnell said that the International Gymnastics Federation must finalize the format of the Mixed Olympic event by the end of May.
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As part of its announcement, the IOC has also confirmed the number of teams and athletes who will participate in the five sports that are added to the Olympic program for Los Angeles Games: Baseball / Softball, Cricket, Football Flag, Crosse and Squash.
The four team sports added will each include six male teams and six female teams, while Squash will include 16 men and 16 women in competition individually.
In Flag Football, which may be the most intriguing additions, each team will be made up of 10 athletes. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said last week that the League and players' union would probably make a decision in the coming months If NFL players can participate in the games.
The United States celebrates the victory of the bronze medal at the 4 x 400 mixed relay during the Tokyo 2020 summer Olympic Games at the Olympic stadium.
Among the other major changes to the sports program for Los Angeles:
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For the first time in Olympic history, the football competition features more female teams (16) than men (12). McConnell attributed this change, in part, to the position of the United States as “the house of the highest levels of popularity” of the female game.
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Swimming will add six new medal events to the shortest distance in sport, 50 meters. In addition to the 50 meter freestyle, which is currently an Olympic event, Los Angeles will also have the 50 meters from behind, the 50 meters and the butterfly 50 meters.
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There will be 12 teams per 3×3 basketball sex, a significant increase compared to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, which had eight. The 32 new 3×3 basketball quota points were taken directly from Breaking, which was an Olympic sport for the first and probably the only time in Paris last summer.
McConnell said that the basic sports program for the Los Angeles Olympic Games will feature the same number of quota points as the Paris 2024 Olympic Games: 10,500. The five new sports will add 698 athletes, above the quota.
The IOC has announced that women would represent 50.5% of the athlete swimming pool in the 2028 matches. And, for the first time, each team sport will have the same number of women's teams as the male teams, or more.
Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatuday.com or on social networks @ tomschad.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on USA Today: The Los An Olympic Games
