Panam Sports, an entity that organizes the Pan American Games, announced on Thursday (19) the scheduled modalities program for the next edition of the event, which will take place in 2027, in Lima, Peru. For the first time in the history of the competition, basketball was off the list, which brings the inclusion of the cricket.
Three other sports were excluded: Bowling, which had been played since Havana-1991, Raquetball, which debuted at Mar Del Plata-1995, and Breaking, whose first appearance was in the last edition of the tournament in Santiago-2023.
The decision was made by the organization’s executive committee in a very democratic process among all national Olympic committees, “according to Panam Sports President Snow Ilic. There are 41 member entities, including the COB (Olympic Committee of Brazil).
Of the 36 program sports, 33 were chosen according to the preferences of the National Committees and 3 were defined by the Lima-2027 Organizing Committee, says the Panam statement, without informing who chose which modality or detail the decision to exclude basketball.
The cricket’s debut follows the program of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, which provides for the return of the sport to the event 128 years later. There, the shape of the dispute will be Twenty20, where each team countered the ball 120 times. The goal is to prevent poles (or wicket) from being knocked down by the ball and scoring points on each renovated. It has not yet been confirmed if Lima-2027 will follow the same format, with little tradition in Brazil.
In basketball, the country can practically consider one less medal in its goals. The female and male teams have already risen to the podium 33 times. The men stayed out of it in just three of the 19 games in the games, where they won gold six times, while women took medals in all 17 competitions they played, five of them gold.
See below the list of modalities of the Lima-2027 program:
- Water Sports (swimming, ornamental jumps, aquatic polo, artistic swimming and aquatic marathon)
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Handball
- Baseball (male) and softbol (female)
- Boxing
- Canoeing (speed and slalom)
- Cycling (track, road, mountain bike, BMX Racing and BMX Freestyle)
- Cricket
- Equestrian (jumps, training and CCE)
- Sports climb
- Fencing
- Aquatic skiing
- Soccer
- Gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic and trampoline)
- Gulf
- Judo
- Grass hockey
- Karate
- Weightlifting
- Fight
- Sport on wheels (artistic skating, speed skating and skate)
- Basca ball
- Modern Pentatlo
- Remo
- Rugbi Sevens
- Squash
- Surf
- Archery shot
- Sports shot
- Taekwondo
- Tennis
- Table tennis
- Triathl
- Vela
- Volleyball (court and beach)
