Expect baseball/softball, karate, skateboard, sports climbing and surfing to take over your TV screens starting July 24, 2020.
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The new sports will add 18 events and 474 athletes to the program.
It said the decision was the most comprehensive evolution of the Olympic programme in modern history.
“We want to take sport to the youth”, Thomas Bach, IOC president, said in the release.
If you missed baseball and softball at the 2012 Olympics in London, then you’ll be in for a treat during the next Summer Games.
When the 2020 Summer Olympics get underway in Tokyo, softball and baseball will be included on the program.
The push to reach out to young people is not a new initiative for the International Olympic Committee, as they introduced BMX for the 2008 Summer Olympics.
Softball is more popular, as it’s basically the only time the sport is shown on a national stage at a professional level. The games will be played at a shared venue In Yokohama.
“Today’s historic decision by the International Olympic Committee is a “home run” for the Olympics, our sport and the Tokyo 2020 Games”, World Baseball and Softball Confederation President Riccardo Fraccari said. “It simply should not be missing at a large worldwide sports event”.
Craig Cress, executive director of USA Softball, said many young players had suffered after the sport was removed from the games. The IOC’s aim is for the inclusion of additional sports to give impetus to bids to host the Olympics.
Numerous top talents in US Major League Baseball have avoided playing in a quadrennial global baseball competition, the World Baseball Classic, preferring to play in their professional league games for a variety of reasons, including possible injuries.
Baseball/softball chief Ricardo Fraccari said: “We are very proud to be elected again”.
Tokyo 2020 is the first committee to use the changes set forth in this agenda.
Fraccari said talks with Major League Baseball are “very open and going in a very good way”.
Skateboarding, with two street and two park events involving 40 competitors each (20 male, 20 female), will be in Tokyo.
“We can’t wait to see the world’s best going head to head on the waves in Tokyo and millions of surfing fans revelling in the competition and the fantastic festival atmosphere of the beach party”.
Sections of the skateboarding community have previously been scathing about the sport becoming a part of the Olympics, with numerous online petitions having been started calling for its exclusion.
Skateboarding’s approval came despite tensions between rival federations.
It’s official. There will be five more sports on the Olympic program four years from now at Tokyo 2020.
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A lawsuit was filed last week in California by the World Skateboarding Federation (WSF). This can be an unscientific thing, as was made clear in 2013, when the board voted to drop wrestling from the 2020 Olympics and then reversed that decision and reinstated it just a few months later.
