Biden trying to get IOC to see Haudenosaunee light

President Joe Biden is pushing to allow the Indigenous nation that invented lacrosse to play under its own flag when the sport returns to the Olympics in 2028, writes Eddie Pells of The Associated Press.

Biden’s position, announced Wednesday at the White House Tribal Nations Summit, is a request for the International Olympic Committee to allow the Haudenosaunee Nationals to compete as their own team at the Los Angeles Games.

“Their ancestors invented the game. They perfected it for a millennium,” Biden said. “Their circumstances are unique and they should be granted an exception to field their own team at the Olympics.”

That would require the IOC to make an exception to a rule that permits teams playing only as part of an official national Olympic committee to compete in the Olympics. The Haudenosaunee have competed as their own team at a number of international events since 1990.

The Haudenosaunee, formerly known as the Iroquois, is a collection of six Indigenous nations whose territory covers upstate New York and adjacent sections of Canada.

Shortly after the IOC announced in October that lacrosse was returning to the Olympics, it reiterated its stance about teams having to compete under the flag of an established Olympic committee. It suggested the U.S. and Canadian Olympic committees would have to find a way to include Indigenous athletes on their respective national teams.

Carving out certain spots for the athletes on U.S. and Canadian teams would create logistical problems of its own in the selection process. It wasn’t the ultimate goal of Haudenosaunee leaders when they pushed for lacrosse to come back to the Olympics.

“The ultimate goal is for the Haudenosaunee to win a gold medal,” said Leo Nolan, the executive director of the Haudenosaunee Nationals. “It’s a delicate situation because there are so many moving parts to this whole thing.”

But, he said, if the goal at the Olympics is to showcase the best in every sport, the Haudenosaunee should have a place in the games. The current world rankings have the Haudenosaunee men in third, behind the U.S. and Canada.

Working with World Lacrosse, the sport’s international federation, organizers for the Los Angeles Olympics leaned heavily into the Indigenous history of the sport to sell the IOC on bringing lacrosse back to the games as a medal event for the first time since 1908.