Are the number of sports on the Games program reduced from Brisbane 2032? » Decisive vote this year

The IOC's intention to scale down the number of sports was addressed at a recent meeting in Lausanne of the Executive Committee. This measure is aimed at the edition of the Summer Games from Brisbane 2032and a set of criteria based on the level of interest of the disciplines will be voted on in June, writes Inside-the-Games.

For now, the Executive Committee meeting has not put together a list of cuts, but the IOC president, former swimmer, double Olympic champion, Kirsty Coventryaims as a deadline for a decision between this year and, at the latest, the first months of the next one.

She clearly summarized the direction of this restructuring process in a press conference that was held after the meeting. “I strongly believe that size will change” and “I don't expect to see 36 sports.” This last statement refers to the edition Los Angeles 2028where a record number of races will be held 36 sports. A significant increase compared to London 2012when they were 26 sports.

The key to this reform is to see the Olympic map through a more precise and focused lens, leaving aside the idea of ​​sports as a whole, officials say. A working group led by Karl Stoss intends to evaluate the disciplines, at the level most closely related to playing space, locations and logistics.

The IOC Sports Director, Pierre Ducreyexplained that a discipline is one or more events within a sport that requires its own competition space or a significant modification of a common space, usually involving a separate group of athletes. According to this definition, the 2024 Paris Olympics were divided into 47 disciplines, and the 2026 Milan-Cortina Olympics into 20.

Kirsty Coventry: “This is our product, we can't keep expanding indefinitely”

The reasoning has a sporting, operational and economic dimension, as Ducrey correlated this method with the need to “try to understand how we can simplify and reduce the scale of the Games by using units closely related to one of the most challenging elements in organizing the Games, namely the location“.

“This is our product. We should regain control of it. And we should take care of him. And we should think about how we want potential new sports, innovative sports and disciplines to be included in the program,” Coventry said. The idea ties in with the limits of the recent expansion phase, which the president summed up by saying that “we cannot continue to expand indefinitely“.

Brisbane will present its view, but the IOC does not want to leave it to the organizing committee to make a decision before first establishing a clear framework. That's why Coventry emphasized that the involvement of organizing committees is “up to a certain point“. Organizers will have limited room for maneuver in a decision that will directly affect Queensland venues. The Brisbane 2032 contract does not require the Games to be staged on the scale of Los Angeles 2028, and Andrew Liveristhe president of the organizing committee, supports maintaining the limit at 10,500 athleteswhile LA28 could reach 13,000 participants.

Regional pressure is also influencing the debate as, according to The Australian, the 2032 plan could include up to nine Olympic zones in Queensland, with competitions set to be held in Rockhampton, Cairns, Townsville, Maryborough and Toowoomba, as well as the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Brisbane.

Brisbane 2032 Olympic Village area – projection Photo: Brisbane 2032

From this perspective, disciplines that require specific facilities will be subject to closer scrutiny, such as mountain biking within cycling, canoe slalom and combined event within equestrian. It seems unlikely that Brisbane 2032 will include more of the sports added for LA28 such as flag football, lacrosse or squash.

The recent meeting did not make any cuts, only fixed a line: a tighter selection, different from the expansion that appeared during his presidency Thomas Bach.