Obstacle Course Racing To Be Included in 2028 Olympic Games

The following transcription is taken from a video report we created this morning. You can view the entire video below.

Obstacle course racing was approved as a part of the modern pentathlon being approved for the 2028 games. It was put forward by the LA committee, which also put forward flag football and a couple of other sports you might have read about in the last couple of days, but they’re saying it’s sort of a rubber stamp situation at this point.

OCR will get in, but to be super clear, it isn’t obstacle racing as a standalone, it’s obstacle racing as the fifth discipline in modern pentathlon, and that discipline will be a short course of 65 meters, and it joins fencing, laser gun pistol shooting, swimming, and cross-country running. It’s replacing equestrian, which had controversy at the Tokyo Games in 2020.

Thomas Bach, IOC President, stated that if Modern Pentathlon (MP) hadn’t put obstacle racing in this, it would have been removed, but MP found a suitable fifth discipline replacement.

The short, short version is you should know that, uh, Joe Desna, head of Spartan Race, uh, worked closely with Ian Adamson going back all the way to 2014.

In 2015. Uh, they created something called the I O R F, which became World O C R, which is now World Obstacle, which has now sort of merged with modern pentathlon, the U I P M to make this all happen. Now, how do I feel about it? I have been out front saying, I’m not sure this is necessarily good for OCR.

Like, does it bring more eyeballs to the sport? Does it do anything for the business side? It’s not true OCR because it’s just the sort of ninja course and not really obstacle racing. I’ve said something like most of those things in the last couple of years. However, when I heard the news this morning. I found myself proud.

I found myself kind of happy that these guys did it. They’ve been talking about it for 10 years. You know, I talked with Joe in 2012, uh, in Killington and this came up and here it is there, uh, they’re one step closer to doing it. So will it ever be the course that you and I love running in the mountains and under barbed wire?

Probably not. Uh, will they even ever get past this 65-meter? Will there be a standalone? Course, uh, even three K at some point in the Olympics, maybe, but as it stands now, uh, at 20, 28 in Los Angeles, you will see short course OCR as part of modern pentathlon in the Olympics. As I said, so much more to come on this.

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Matt B. Davis

is the host of the Obstacle Racing Media Podcast and the author of "Down and Dirty-The Essential Training Guide for Obstacle Races and Mud Runs". He is also the only (known) #wafflehouseelite obstacle racer.