New Delhi, April 16 : The Indian Golf Union (IGU) has welcomed the inclusion of the Mixed Team Golf Event in the Los Angeles Olympic Games by the International Olympic Committee. "At the Los Angeles Olympics, we might see Shubhankar Sharma and Aditi Ashok teeing off together for India!" the IGU wrote in a post on social media on Wednesday.

"The Indian Golf Union welcomes the inclusion of the Mixed Team Golf Event in the #LA2028 Olympics by @iocmedia," it said.

At the Paris Olympic Games in 2024, golf was conducted as an individual discipline for men and women. But the IOC has approved inclusion of mixed team golf to maintain gender balance and at the same time bring in a new format of the sport to attrack more eyeballs.

The International Golf Federation (IGF) on Tuesday confirmed that the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has approved the addition of an Olympic Golf Mixed-Team Event, which will debut at the Olympic Games Los Angeles 2028 (LA28) and complement the Men's Individual Olympic Golf Competition and the Women's Individual Olympic Golf Competition. All three Olympic Golf events will be contested at The Riviera Country Club at the LA28 Games.

The event programme and athlete quotas for LA28 were approved by the IOC Executive Board on April 9. With a total of 351 medal events, 22 more than at Paris 2024 (329), the LA28 programme maintains the core athlete quota of 10,500 with an extra 698 allocated for the five sports proposed by the LA28 Organising Committee (Baseball/Softball, Cricket, Flag Football, Lacrosse and Squash).

The event programme for LA28 was developed based on the requests presented by the International Sports Federations to the IOC.

The decision from the IOC Executive Board followed the recommendation from the Olympic Programme Commission and the principles approved in 2023: gender equal, globally appealing, cost and complexity conscious, athlete focused. With the inclusion of boxing, approved by the IOC Session in March 2025, the LA28 sports programme is composed of 31 sports, with an additional five sports proposed by the Organising Committee and approved by the IOC in 2023.

Golf is one of six sports ' joining Archery, Athletics (4x100m mixed relay), Gymnastics, Rowing Coastal Beach Sprint, and Table Tennis ' to add a mixed-gender competition for LA28.

/IANS