Page 36 - aips-IV-23.indd

FEATURES
THE NEW OLYMPIC SPORTS FOR LA28
Baseball-softball, Cricket, Flag Football, Lacrosse and Squash
By Gianni Merlo
AIPS President
The choice to include five new sports in the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic programme certainly aroused controversy and expres- sions of ridicule from those who de- fend the ideal of pure and traditional sport that is of their homeland and pre-
fer not to see what happens elsewhere. Let's analyse the reasons why the IOC included these new sports in the 2028 Olympic programme.
THE NEW SPORTS Of the five sports: Cricket, Baseball-softball, Squash, La- crosse, Flag Football, the first three are “normal”, practically already seen, the others, an intriguing novelty. Why
should we be surprised? The Olympic days of breakdancing will be born in Paris...
HISTORY Baseball-softball has already been part of the Olympic family, then it was abandoned, but readmitted in Tokyo as an additional sport and logi- cally it cannot be missing from the Los Angeles Olympic programme. Squash
36 | AIPSMAGAZINE