Women's T20 games at CWG played a key role in getting cricket an Olympic berth in LA 2028

Mumbai, Oct 16 (IANS) Women's cricket in the form of a T20 competition at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham in 2022 played a key role in convincing the top officials of the Organising Committee of the Los Angeles Olympic Games to propose cricket as one of the additions sports.

Besides the Inclusion of Women's T20 competition as a medal sport at last year's Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the success of professional leagues like the Indian Premier League (IPL) and Major League Cricket also helped in convincing the La 2028 administrators that cricket will be a game changer and thus proposed it as one of the additional sports.

Niccolò Campriani, a three-time Olympic gold medallist shooter from Italy who is the sports director of LA 2028, said observing cricket matches at the Birmingham Commonwealth Games was amazing and convinced them more than the presentation by the International Cricket Council (ICC) that cricket will be the game changer for LA Olympic Games.

"There was also karate, kickboxing, and breaking (that LA 2028 was considering). What we did is for every sport we had one formal submission from the international federation, one observation -- which for cricket was at the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. The observation from the CWG was just amazing. We all loved it. We got a glimpse of what cricket can be in the LA context. We were not planning to fly for an IPL game, so that observation was critical. So yes, women's cricket played a critical role (in moving them to pick cricket as an additional sport)," Campriani told the media in the mixed zone after Cricket was picked as one of the five additional sports for Los Angeles.

Campriani said that cricket's growth as the fastest-growing sport in the world, the success of its professional leagues and its marketability in the United States were the other factors that convinced them.

"It's a game-changer for the Olympic movement. It's a win-win scenario not only for the IOC and the cricket community but also for LA 28. The idea was to create a perfect combination of American sports to be showcased to the world, but also introduce global sports that are not as developed in the US market," he said.

"The stars have aligned, with the Major League Cricket that started this year as well as the T20 World Cup coming in 2024. It's going to be interesting to see what are the venues available, after the legacy of the T20 World Cup. We're still committed to not building a new permanent venue for the Games. We want to leverage that legacy. I was lucky enough to do my observation at the CWG last year. We're really excited. This decision is specific for LA 28, but you have Brisbane 2032 around the corner," said Campriani, who said they will have a huge schedule to manage with 35 sports, 28 regular and five additional along with Weightlifting and modern pentathlon getting approval.

With a decision on boxing pending, they will have to do a major juggling of various disciplines and athlete quotas for each discipline to be as close to the IOC's proposal to restrict the number of participants to 10,500 for Paris 2024.

He said a final decision on how they will cut the quotas to accommodate the additional sports, will be taken up after the Paris Olympic Games in 2024.

India's IOC member Nita M. Ambani said that the inclusion of cricket in the sports programme for the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics Games was a welcome addition that had the potential to attract a lot of new interest and opportunities for the Olympic movement across newer geographies in the world.

Speaking after cricket was officially confirmed as an Olympic sport at the ongoing 141st IOC Session in Mumbai, Nita M. Ambani said, “As an IOC member, a proud Indian, and an ardent cricket fan, I am delighted that IOC members have voted to include Cricket as an Olympic Sport in the LA Summer Olympics 2028!”.