Chao News Client Reporter Li Wenyao

On October 16th, at the 141st plenary session of the International Olympic Committee held in Mumbai, India, the IOC plenary session decided to adopt five new sports for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games: baseball and softball, cricket, flag football, squash and tennis.

Earlier, International Olympic Committee President Bach said: "The choice of these five new sports is in line with American sports culture, and will show the world the iconic sports of the United States and bring international sports to the United States."

Official website of the International Olympic Committee explained that gender equality, the utilization rate of existing venues and facilities, and the popularity of events in the United States and around the world were taken into account in the evaluation of new Olympic sports.

There are three out of five items.

Appeared in Hangzhou Asian Games.

Among the five newly added events, except stick tennis and flag football, the other three events are official events of the Hangzhou Asian Games, and the China team also won the silver medal in the women’s softball event of the Hangzhou Asian Games.

Baseball and softball, cricket and stick tennis were once Olympic events. Among them, baseball and softball entered the Olympic Games from 1992 to 2008 and 2020, cricket appeared in the Olympic Games in 1900, and stick tennis was the event of the two Olympic Games in 1904 and 1908.

Although squash and flag football have never entered the Olympic Games before. But in the past two years, with the popularity of outdoor sports and the help of new media, it has become a new sport popular among young people after Frisbee, with a huge mass base.

Compared with the formal rugby, the waist flag rugby replaces the direct contact of the body by pulling the waist flag on the belt, which reduces the collision of the project itself, expands the audience of the sport, and makes teenagers and even girls happy.

Squash, which is known as the king of indoor sports, has entered college campuses and stadiums first. At present, there are about 30 squash courts in Hangzhou, including individual investment. These dozens of courts not only appear in national fitness facilities, but also can be seen in campuses and businesses, laying a good foundation for the public to understand squash.

Minority sports enter the Olympics.

Gain more attention

Compared with the other four events, stick tennis seems to be farther away from our lives. So what exactly is stick tennis?

Stick tennis, also known as net baseball, originated from the Indian tribes in North America, is a collective sport that uses the net pocket at the top of the bat to control the movement of small balls, and uses the lever principle to catch the balls in the net by throwing and scoring, and finally determines the outcome of the game by the score.

Does that sound familiar? Modern sports such as basketball and ice hockey, which originated in North America and are popular in the world, were actually invented with reference to stick tennis.

Stick tennis Source: vision china

In 1998, Beijing Sport University formally established the first male and female school team of stick tennis in China, and ten years later, it extended the sport to universities in Shanghai. At present, stick tennis is mainly carried out in universities, primary and secondary schools and sports training institutions in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, but there are no officially sponsored brand competitions in China because of the small number of participants.

These five events have officially become new events in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. For baseball and cricket, they are an opportunity to return to the Olympic family. For stick tennis, flag football and squash, they have entered the public’s field of vision, attracting more people to be crazy, just like cricket in the Asian Games.

In addition, according to the suggestions of international individual sports organizations, the IOC Executive Board meeting also confirmed the sub-item setting of the Los Angeles Olympic Games. Compared with the Paris Olympic Games, there is only one change: the beach sprint of coastal rowing, which has gradually become popular in recent years, has replaced the men’s and women’s lightweight double sculls. This is also the first time that rowing beach sprint has joined the Olympic Games.

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