Five sports, including karate, will feature in the Japanese Games after the International Olympic Committee voted them in on Wednesday in an attempt to attract a younger audience.
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The five, including a combined baseball-softball bid, were put forward for inclusion previous year by Tokyo organizers.
“Taken together, the five sports are an innovative combination of established and emerging, youth-focused events that are popular in Japan and will add to the legacy of the Tokyo Games”, IOC President Thomas Bach said. 9, Major League Baseball would have to interrupt its schedule, a 162-game-in-183-day grind that has little flexibility unless owners and the players’ association are willing to cut games – and lose revenue.
The addition of these five new sports is expected to lead to 18 new events and 474 athletes added to the 2020 Games. “I think it’s particularly important when the participation rate for women in sports have been skyrocketing, especially in the Olympics”. Women’s softball will also have six teams.
“We are very proud to be elected again, but this time we have a very new face because we are only one federation and two disciplines, unlike in the past”, said Riccardo Fraccari, president of the World Baseball Softball Confederation.
International Olympic Committee members showed more dissent than expected, however, in questioning the choice of the sports as well as the format of those selected.
The IOC also approved karate, skateboarding, rock climbing and surfing as new sports as part of its IOC Session in advance of the Rio Olympics.
“We are so happy that sport climbing will be participating in the Games of Tokyo”, said International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) President Marco Scolaris. She said the report’s findings brought out a “sobering truth”.
If not, Carraro said, said it will be “difficult for baseball to be included in the future” beyond the Tokyo Games.
“Be sure we will present the best athletes in Tokyo because our goal is not to appear one time but to be a permanent player”, Fraccari told journalists on Wednesday. Of 554 athletes the U.S.is sending to Rio, 292 are women and 262 are men.
The surfing competition will be held on natural waves at a beach location in Chiba prefecture.
Fernando Aguerre, the president of the International Surfing Association, said, “22 years paddling the Olympic wave, and we finally made it to shore”.
Slated to be held at Nippon Budokan, which Coates described as the “spiritual home of martial arts in Japan”, Men’s and women’s kata and kumite karate events will bring the Okinawa-born martial art to the Olympics for the first time, and will no doubt spur a blossoming of interest in the native Japanese sport.
Both sport climbing and skateboarding will take place at a special downtown facility in central Tokyo, while surfing will be held around one hour from Tokyo at Shida Shita Point.
“I’ve always believed that if skateboarding was properly protected and supported, its appearance on the Olympic stage could change the world”, International Skateboarding Federation president Gary Ream said.
“We hope that the worldwide federation reach an agreement with the United States professional league, as happened with basketball and ice hockey”, Carraro said.
Skateboarding’s approval came despite tensions between rival federations.
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The lawsuit also alleged that Ream struck up a friendly relationship with Christophe Dubi, the IOC Olympic Games executive director, and provided Dubi’s son with free training at a skateboarding camp he owned.
