Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Olympics, Cricket, Baseball, United States
Ryan Smart
One sport will be removed entirely from the 2028 Olympics schedule - with its replacement having already been confirmed.
The 2024 Olympics in Paris saw the debuts of breaking (or break dancing) and kayak cross, with a number of other sports returning to the schedule.
While the introduction of new sports to the Games is ultimately decided upon by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the organisers of the upcoming Games are able to put forward suggestions for sports or new disciplines to be added in.
That is why, in some cases, sports will appear for the first time during one Olympic cycle and then not appear again in four years' time.
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Ahead of Paris 2024, the event's organisers decided to put forward breaking, which was then accepted by the IOC.
There were two different breaking events featured at the Olympics - the B-boys and B-girls competitions.
Japan won the gold medal in the B-girls event, while Canada secured the top podium spot in the B-boys discipline.
The event was partially overshadowed by controversy surrounding Raygun, full name Rachael Gunn, an Australian breakdancer who competed in the B-girls event.
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She failed to score a single point in any of her three breaking battles, having shown off some unexpected and unorthodox moves during the competition.
Gunn faced significant abuse and hate online, and posted a video to Instagram in which she stated that she was 'devastated' by the criticism.
Breaking will not be on the Olympics calendar for 2028 - in a decision that was unrelated to the Raygun controversy, as it was made before Paris 2024 got underway.
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Taking its place in Los Angeles will be cricket, which will return to the Games for the first time since 1900.
The 1900 event was due to be held as a four-team tournament involving Great Britain, France, Belgium and the Netherlands, but the latter two nations withdrew.
As a result, a one-off match was held between Great Britain and France, which was won by the British team.
Now, it will return as a Twenty20 tournament featuring cricket's most successful nations - in an attempt by event organisers to capitalise on the growing popularity of the sport in the United States.
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The USA does not have a long and successful history in cricket, barring a spell in the early 2000s when the nation qualified for the Champions League trophy.
But it was granted associate status - the level below the Test-playing nations - in 2019 and has been making significant strides, both in terms of player quality and infrastructure.
It also hosted part of last year's men's T20 World Cup, with the US side defeating Canada in the opening fixture before producing a famous victory over Pakistan to send them into the knockout phase, where they eventually lost to England.
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England's 2019 World Cup winner Liam Plunkett moved to the country in 2020 and has been involved as a coach, and was recently appointed as a director of the Cricket Impact Group (CIG) which aims to speed up cricketing development across North America.
Ex-New Zealand all-rounder Corey Anderson is also now a US citizen and has lived in the country since 2020.
The pair have competed in Major League Cricket, a yearly franchise T20 league set up in the United States in 2023 which attracts some of the world's top stars, including Steve Smith, Jason Roy, Nicholas Pooran and Lockie Ferguson.
Speaking to The Independent about the growing standards in the United States last year, Plunkett said: "We're basically trying to put together cricket programmes in place of baseball facilities.
"When I first came over here I would be running and bowling in an indoor baseball field. I would be bowling at one of those hard baseball mannequins. But we're getting there. We've now set up a couple of academies in Philadelphia.
"A lot of those skills are transferable [from other major US sports into cricket]. A lot of those kids who grew up playing those sports are going to be good in the field. The bowling side of things in tricky, getting that arm to work without the bend. But I'm sure if you work with some of these college athletes, they'll be able to make the switch.
"For the girls, the hand-eye co-ordination they already have from playing softball - where the ball is really flying at you at some serious speed - is really perfect preparation for batting."
Other returning sports to the 2028 Olympic Games are baseball and softball - both major sports in the United States - as well as lacrosse. Flag football and squash will also make their debuts.