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≡ INTEL REPORT ≡
With considerable fanfare on 16 October 2023, the International Olympic Committee approved the five added sports requested by the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games organizing committee, including baseball and softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash.
For cricket, it was the first time back as a medal sport since the 1900 Olympic Games in Paris, its only previous appearance. For lacrosse, a medal sport in 1904 in St. Louis and 1908 in London, it had been a demonstration sport also in 1928, 1932 and 1948, but finally back once again.
Actually, neither sport is returning to the Games as they were in the past.
Cricket will play in its shortened Twenty20 (“T20″) format – created in 2003 – with each team having a single inning, limited to 20 overs and usually completed in about 3 1/2 hours.
Lacrosse will also play in a small format called Sixes, formally introduced in 2021. The field is smaller (70 x 36 m instead of 100 x 55 m), each team has six players instead of 10 for field lacrosse and each game has four quarters of eight minutes each, instead of four 15-minute quarters.
So, both are really new.
But along with these new sports and their new formats come new questions. And the unique background of both sports pose new questions for the International Olympic Committee, more so than for the LA28 organizers.
● Lacrosse: What about the Haudenosaunee Nationals?
The sport of lacrosse dates back to perhaps the 17th Century, played in North America by local tribes in what is now the eastern United States and Canada. Great respect in the game is therefore paid to today’s tribes, and in 1983, the Iroquois Nationals was formed by the Grand Council of the Haudenosaunee to play in local, national and international competition.
The team was accepted by the International Lacrosse Federation (now World Lacrosse) in 1988 and the women’s team was recognized by the federation in 2008. The men’s team has had considerable success, winning World Championships bronze medals in 2014, 2018 and 2023, and the women’s team has had finished of seventh in 2013 and eighth in 2022.
In 2022, the team name was changed to Haudenosaunee Nationals, to better represent the Haudenosaunee Confederacy (its purple emblem is shown above).
However, from an Olympic point of view, there is a problem.
The geographic area of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy spreads across the U.S.-Canadian border in northern New York and southern Ontario, meaning the team is neither American nor Canadian. So, it is not under the jurisdiction – from an Olympic point of view – of either the Canadian Olympic Committee or the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee.
Which means it can’t compete in the Olympic Games, as National Olympic Committees are the entities which field all entries for the Games, excepting the Olympic Refugee Team and the “neutral” athletes specially admitted from Russia and Belarus for the Paris 2024 Games.
In the late days of the Biden Administration, a “Joint Statement from the United States and Canada on Haudenosaunee Participation in the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics” was issued by The White House (only) and included:
“The United States and Canada call on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, a confederacy of Indigenous Nations in North America, to compete in lacrosse at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games as their own team under their own flag. …
“While participation in the Olympics is generally reserved for recognized countries, the Haudenosaunee are seeking a special exception from the IOC to field their own lacrosse team. Given the unique and exceptional circumstances of the Haudenosaunee’s historic connection to this sport, and their Men’s and Women’s teams continuously ranked participation in international competitive lacrosse for almost half a century, we believe that a narrowly scoped exception is appropriate.”
How that is supposed to happen is not specified, but the question will now fall to IOC President-elect Kirsty Coventry (ZIM), who will take office on 23 June in Lausanne.
● Cricket: What about Cricket West Indies?
Parallel to the Haudenosaunee Nationals is the situation for Cricket West Indies – the Windies – a well-known force on the men’s side of the sport, which has been a member of the International Cricket Council since 1926!
At the T20 World Cup, the Windies are two-time champions, in 2012 and 2016 and were hosts in 2010, and co-hosted with the U.S. in 2024, finishing fifth.
But the players are from multiple countries. The 2024 T20 World Cup squad had players from Antigua & Barbuda, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Trinidad & Tobago and St. Vincent & the Grenadines, with a total of 16 countries as part of the association.
So, Cricket West Indies is appealing to the International Cricket Council for special attention for 2028, but recognizing that it is not going to get its regular, multi-national team into the Games. Agence France Presse reported last week that Cricket West Indies instead asked the ICC for one of two options to allow some presence in the six-team LA28 tournament:
“The first would see an inter-Caribbean qualifying tournament should the West Indies men or women find themselves in a qualifying position, allowing the winner to take the region’s spot.
“In the second, a dedicated regional qualifying process involving each of the West Indies independent nations would take place.”
According to CWI chief executive Chris Dehring (JAM):
“All we are asking is that our individual nations’ exceptional Olympic legacy be considered in the conversation. …
“Now, with cricket’s inclusion, we must ensure that our cricketers are not shut out of history. We are ready to collaborate. We are ready to compete. But above all, we are asking for fairness.”
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The Cricket West Indies, recognizing a multi-national squad would be too difficult to deal with, is making things easier for the International Cricket Council than the Haudenosaunee for the International Olympic Committee.
In the lacrosse case, it isn’t going to be easy. A statement from the IOC to Syracuse’ newspaper The Daily Orange, noted in February:
“Only National Olympic Committees (NOCs) recognised by the IOC can enter teams for the Olympic Games in accordance with the Olympic Charter.
“This means it is up to the two NOCs concerned (USA and Canada) – in coordination with World Lacrosse and the National Federations concerned – to decide if they include athletes from Haudenosaunee in their respective teams depending on the passport they hold.”
It’s another question that Coventry will be asked to take up.
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