A brief guide to sports that are in effect between the Olympic ones and those that, on the other hand, are excluded from global competition.
The Tokyo 2020 Olympics (they kept the same wording despite the shift of a year) are in full swing and will last another week: and many are wondering these days what are the sports considered Olympic.
Because there are many and many races and competitions we are witnessing these days: but getting lost in the jungle of sports present at the Olympics is very easy.
For this reason we will try to draw a dividing line on sports present at the Olympics and on sports excluded from these competitions.
The Olympic Games
There are very few who do not know what the Olympics are, we are sure.
But for those few who don’t know i Olympic Games of the Modern Era are a four-year sporting event that involves the competition between the best athletes in the world in almost all sports practiced on the five continents.
Although the Games of 1916, 1940 and 1944 were not played, the Olympics continued to be counted, so that the Tokyo 2020 Games were the 32nd edition.
The name Olympic Games was chosen to remember the ancient Olympic Games that took place in Ancient Greece in the city of Olympia, in which the best Greek athletes competed.
The Baron Stone coubertin at the end of the nineteenth century he had the idea of organizing games similar to those of ancient Greece, and therefore closed to women, but on this point he was not heard. The first Olympics of the modern era took place in Athens in 1896.
Who organizes them?
To organize them, since the dawn of time, is the International Olympic Committee (IOC) founded on 23 June 1894 by the aforementioned French baron Pierre de Coubertin: the highest authority of the Olympic Movement.
Its role is to promote sports, even at high levels, only as a sport, for everyone, and without distinction.
It also ensures the regular organization of the Games and strongly encourages the promotion of women’s sport, sports ethics and clean sport, without doping.
Three groups of organizations operate at a more specialized level:
- International Federations, the international governing bodies of a sport (e.g. FIFA, the International Football Federation, and FIBA, the International Basketball Federation)
- The National Olympic Committees, which regulate the Olympic Movement within a nation (e.g. the CONI and the Olympic Committee of Italy)
- The Organizing Committees of the Olympic Games, which deal with the organization of a specific edition of the Olympics.
The Paralympics
In addition to the Olympics in the strict sense, there are also i Paralympic Games: the equivalent of the Olympic Games for athletes with physical disabilities.
Designed as parallel Olympics, they take their name from the merger of the prefix to with the word Olympic and its derivatives. The first Paralympic games recognized as such were played in 1960 in Italy.
Olympic Sports
Now let’s get to the point: what are the sports present at the Olympics currently, taking into consideration the current Tokyo Olympics?
They are well 39 sports protagonists of the Tokyo Olympics, scheduled from 23 July to 8 August 2021.
In addition to the traditional Olympic sports that have made the history of the games, this year 5 new sports will debut: karate, sport climbing, baseball, surfing e skateboarding.
To be part of the event, the Olympic card requires that
- regarding it men’s sport, it must be practiced in at least 75 countries on 4 continents
- and for female sportson the contrary, the diffusion must be in at least 40 countries on 3 continents.
Below is the complete list of sports present in Tokyo:
- Climbing
- Athletics
- Badminton
- Baseball
- Beach Volley
- Football
- Canoa/ Kayak
- Boating
- Cycling
- Horse riding
- Gym
- Golf
- Hockey su prato
- Judo
- Karate
- Lotta
- I swim
- Artistic swimming
- Basketball
- Handball
- Water polo
- Volleyball
- Pentathlon
- Boxing
- Rugby a 7
- Fencing
- Skateboarding
- Softball
- Weightlifting
- Surf
- Taekwondo
- Tennis
- Table tennis
- Shooting
- Archery
- Trampoline
- Triathlon
- Diving
- Sail
Sports not present at the Olympics
On the other hand, what are the sports that will not be played?
Several are the activities that have appeared (even only once) e have not been reconfirmed; but there are many completely unpublished to the appointment of the five circles.
Some of the most famous disciplines that have not always been reconfirmed or excluded, we just mention a few of the most striking:
- Football americano
- Sumo – despite the pressures of Japan, the host country, where it is a very popular and very important sport
- Polo
- Cricket
- Rugby a 15
- Pole Dance
- and finally Roller Skating
