Compound archery loses out as IOC finalises sports for Los Angeles Olympic Games

Mumbai: India's Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Aditi Gopichand Swami and Ojas Pravin Deotale will not be able to participate in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) rejected a proposal to include compound archery in the Olympics programme.

World Archery had proposed the inclusion of compound archery along with recurve, which is currently part of the Olympic programme.

However, the IOC Executive Board rejected the proposal during its meeting in Mumbai on Friday as this will entail archery getting more athlete quotas and thus impact the overall budget of the Games.

This is a setback for India, a dominant force in compound archery as Aditi and Ojas recently won the men's and women's titles in the World Championships held earlier this year. India had swept all the five gold medals on offer in compound archery during the recently concluded 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, China.

The IOC had received 15 proposals from International Federations for the inclusion of new disciplines in the sports programme of the Los Angeles Olympic Games but rejected all but one -- the inclusion of beach sprint rowing as it replaces lightweight double sculls (men 2x and women 2x) events.

"Following a holistic review of all existing and new disciplines proposed by the respective IFs with sports on the LA28 programme, only one change has been made to the discipline programme compared to Paris 2024, with beach sprint rowing, a format of the coastal rowing discipline, included on the Olympic programme for the first time. It will replace the lightweight double sculls (men 2x and women 2x) events," IOC President Thomas Bach said on Friday.

He said that the proposals were evaluated in terms of whether they would require new venues for conducting and would not need more quota places for that sport and the cost complexity involved.

"A critical consideration in the discipline review was maximising venue-sharing opportunities and leveraging existing, world-class venues and infrastructure in LA and the US. This will be reflected in the LA28 venue master plan," the IOC said in a statement.

The programme of events and athlete quotas will be finalised after Paris 2024. The OPC will now work on ensuring that the final athlete quota numbers for the Olympic Games LA28 remain reasonable and below the overall quota for Tokyo 2020.

With this, the LA28 discipline programme has been finalised by the IOC EB and will not require any approval by the IOC Session.

The programme of events and athlete quotas will be finalised after Paris 2024. The OPC will now work on ensuring that the final athlete quota numbers for the Olympic Games LA28 remain reasonable and below the overall quota for Tokyo 2020.