"VAN" (Sports Desk - 23.08.2025) :: Four of Los Angeles 2028’s new sports showcased their Olympic charm during The World Games 2025, which took place in Chengdu from August 7-17.
Largely described as fast-paced and fun, these sports: lacrosse (sixes), squash, softball and flag football, offered exciting action, fierce competition as well as twists and turns to spectators and viewers, as they took their early steps towards the biggest stage in the world of sports.
Although the favourites ultimately took home the gold, rivalries were reignited, upsets were recorded and fresh buzz was generated.
DRAWING ATTENTION It is understandable that the aforementioned sports were not among the high-demand events at The World Games 2025, with statistics from the Local Organising Committee showing that gymnastics, muay thai, and wushu recorded the most ticket sales.
In China, these LA28’s new sports have yet to find solid footing, and this was also reflected in the low spectator capacity for their venues, with Xindu Better City Softball Arena having a capacity of 1,000 and Chengdu No. 7 High School Eastern Campus Athletics Field - the venue of lacrosse and flag football - having a capacity of around 1,500.
Apart from softball, in which the country won an Olympic silver medal when the sport made its first appearance as an official medal sport at Atlanta 1996, China is building new teams in lacrosse, squash and flag football. And hosting The World Games 2025 gave the Asian country a rare opportunity to test its new talent at a very high level in the new sports of the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics.
While there were mostly family members, friends, teammates, officials and volunteers in the stands in China, the situation is expected to be different in the USA, where these sports are more rooted. LA28 organisers have confirmed that flag football's medal matches will be held in primetime slots.
Except for squash, where the USA had no representative, the North American nation reached the final in flag football, lacrosse and softball, winning gold in lacrosse and softball at The World Games 2025.
Let’s look back on some of the highlights of LA28’s new sports in Chengdu.
FLAG FOOTBALL Following an edge-of-your-seat women’s flag football final at Chengdu No. 7 High School Eastern Campus Athletics Field, Mexico stood tall atop the podium as back-to-back The World Games champions, asserting their place as one of the powerhouses in the sport. Led by quarterback Diana Flores, Mexico scored the game-winning touchdown in the last second of the thrilling encounter to beat world champions and world-ranked number one, USA 26-21. Canada completed the North American podium having secured a thrilling 30–28 victory over Europe’s top ranked nation Austria in the bronze-medal match. Meanwhile, hosts China would be proud of their first-ever international outing in flag football after securing a historic win against reigning Asian champions Japan and concluding their campaign with a sixth-place finish ahead of Japan and Italy.
The 22,000-capacity Exposition Park Stadium, Los Angeles’ newest open-air stadium, is set to host six men's flag football teams and six women's flag football teams during the Olympics in LA.
LACROSSE (SIXES) The United States dominated the women’s sixes competition at The World Games 2025 in Chengdu and clinched gold following a resounding 16-8 win over defending champions Canada in the final. After avenging its 14-12 loss to Canada at Birmingham 2022, the USA now holds the global titles across women’s field, box and sixes lacrosse. The USA’s Marie McCool, who finished with a total of 32 points in five games, a tournament-high, was named the Most Valuable Player of the competition.
At LA28, Lacrosse will also be played at the Exposition Park Stadium. Six teams per gender will compete during the second week of the Games.
SOFTBALL Canada upset the apple cart in women’s softball in Chengdu when they shocked reigning Olympic and world champions Japan 2-1 in the preliminaries. This meant that Japan finished second in their group and had to play the USA in the semi-final - both powerhouses and perennial rivals had always met in the final of global competitions since 2002. The USA edged Japan 7-6 in the semis before securing a commanding 5-0 victory over Chinese Taipei in the gold-medal match to win their fourth consecutive The World Games title. Meanwhile Japan had the chance to exact revenge on Canada in the bronze-medal contest as they enjoyed an overwhelming 11–1 win.
As women’s softball returns to the Olympics at LA28, six teams will compete for Olympic glory at OKC Softball Park, which has a capacity of 13,000 spectators. Japan won the women’s softball event at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
SQUASH Top seeds Satomi Watanabe from Japan and Victor Crouin from France lived up to their billing in Chengdu as they clinched the gold medals in the women’s and men’s singles, respectively. However, the sport also served up upsets in Chengdu, and two of those happened in the semis where world no. 47 Balazs Farkas upset No.2 seed Dimitri Steinmann to become Hungary’s first ever squash finalist at The World Games, while France’s Marie Stephan fought back from two games down to beat women’s No.2 seed Tomato Ho of Hong Kong, China. Following their victories in the final, Crouin became the first man ever to defend the squash World Games title, while Watanabe won Japan’s first-ever squash medal at the Games. The duo have underlined their Olympic ambitions ahead of LA28, which will feature a total of 32 players - 16 per gender - at the Comcast Squash Center at Universal Studios. Most of the sport’s big names did not participate in The World Games in Chengdu, but the road to LA is expected to be extremely tough.
Cr - AIPS
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