I had planned to write about the closing ceremony but in the end, it didn’t grab me as much as I’d hoped. It seemed to pick up pace after Tom Cruise threw himself into the mix, quite literally, but I was already asleep by then, and it sort of feels not worth watching on replay. Although clips and pictures I’ve seen do make me excited for LA’s hosting stint when it begins.

What I’ve really been interested in is the new and tweaked sports we’ll see. I hadn’t realised that surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing which had been new and optional sports for the last three years are now considered core sports and will be included for the forseeable future.

LA is opting not to bring back Breaking which seems an odd choice given how popular it is over there, and when you consider some of the sports they are including, it’s even weirder.

New sports for 2028:

• Baseball/softball
• Flag football
• Squash
• Lacrosse
• Cricket

So we have effectively baseball and American football represented (can’t imagine who will take all the medals in those!). Who plays lacrosse in this day and age? It feels like something that only happens in Enid Blyton boarding schools… will there be enough athletes to make a competition? They’re also switching one of the rowing disciplines to something called Beach Sprint Rowing which appears to be a combination of running on the beach and rowing a bit and then running again. It sounds amazing.

Modern pentathlon had previously been cancelled, but has had a reprieve and amazingly, the show-jumping element is expected to be ditched and replaced with an obstacle course instead. On the one hand, this addresses exactly what I mentioned in my previous post about including some kind of ninja event - hooray. But then I read this article about those sad to see the horse element go and that did make me feel for those who have been so invested in the pentathlon as it has previously existed. It does seem to make logical sense, though, to remove the element of luck from random horse draws and focus on skill and athleticism instead.

Anyway, all this to say I absolutely cannot wait, and will be sitting here in four years time once again tuning in to as many sports as possible for as long as possible over the fortnight. If Tom Cruise was doing the handover this time, who on earth are they going to get for the LA Opening Ceremony??