WFDF

WFDF President Nob Rauch statement on the shortlist of additional sports for LA28  

In News, Press Release * Official Communication by WFDF

The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has seen reports of the shortlist developed by the Olympic Organizing Committee LA28 on the potential additional sports to be included to the Olympic Programme of the 2028 Summer Olympic Games, where Flying Disc will not be reviewed for further consideration. The sports being considered are: baseball/softball, break dancing, cricket, flag football, karate, kickboxing, lacrosse, motorsport, and squash. 

“WFDF is surprised and disappointed to not have been included in the shortlist of potential additional sports invited to submit a proposal for inclusion in the 2028 Olympic Programme,” commented WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. “Flying Disc sports is actively practiced on a competitive level in 103 countries in the world and appeared to satisfy all of the objective criteria agreed between the IOC and LA28. These criteria included not adding cost and complexity to the games by utilizing full venue sharing on the beach or grass stadium, having total gender equality with our gender-balanced mixed format, having youth appeal, and ensuring that the top athletes were involved. There are few other sports that can boast an equivalent Californian DNA as frisbee and we felt our Ultimate 4s format requiring a total athletes’ quota of only 48 would fit well given the overall cap on the Games. We are also strongly convinced that our sport is unique in upholding integrity and fairness with our self-refereeing concept of Spirit of the Game.”  

“We congratulate those International Federations whose sports made it on to the shortlist. We at WFDF will move on and continue to develop our sport on a global scale and will work to ensure that we are as interesting to the organizers as possible when decisions about the Programme for the 2032 Olympic Games in Brisbane are being made.”