New sports such as skateboarding and climbing should give the games a fresher image.
Olympia is getting on in years. 125 years after its premiere, the world’s largest sporting event is having a hard time reaching the younger target group. She is either enthusiastic about cool trend sports or, at best, trains the finger muscles with “e-Sport”.
The competition from events such as X-Games, where snowboard freestylers and BMX artists meet, is a problem for the IOC. With the Youth Olympics, there is now a separate youth edition, which is also used to test new sports and formats.
For the Tokyo Games, the Lords of the Rings paid particular attention to the popularity of young athletes with the addition of new sports. This is new at the Olympics:
Baseball/Softball: Baseball and the women’s variant softball are celebrating a comeback in Tokyo. From 1996 to 2008 softball was played at the summer games, baseball was there from 1992 to 2008. Both are very popular in the host country Japan.
Karate: Because of the competition with Taekwondo, karate had to be patient for a long time before it was finally taken up. It was not until Japan, where karate is popular as in many other Asian countries, that it was given the green light.
Surfing: The surfers will celebrate their Olympic premiere on the short board. Not to be confused with the Olympic class RS: X windsurfers.
Climb: Like surfing, sport climbing is considered cool. The international association states that 35 million people climb worldwide. Medals are awarded in a combination of the three disciplines of lead climbing (lead), bouldering (without rope) and speed.
Skateboard: Skateboarding is seen as a key sport in getting young people excited about the Olympics. With Julia Brückler from Lower Austria, Austria also has a participant.
In addition, trendy variations such as 3×3 basketball and BMX freestyle have been added. In addition, the IOC wants to increase the proportion of women among the active. That is why women’s competitions have been strengthened in existing sports. For example, there are now five instead of three female weight classes in boxing, and only eight instead of the previous ten male weight classes. When it comes to rowing, the women’s foursome came into the program instead of the men’s lightweight foursome.
In addition, numerous mixed competitions are celebrating their premiere, for example in triathlon, swimming, judo, shooting and archery and, for the first time, in athletics with a 4×400 meter mixed relay.
