As for climbing, its fans had a campaign to promote the inclusion of the sport in Tokyo 2020-and several climbing organization have been quick to celebrate the victory. The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games will feature 33 sports and about 11,000 athletes compared with the typical number of 28 sports and 10,500 athletes.
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Surfing got its official status as the Olympic sports. With the many options that young people have, we can not expect any more that they will come automatically to us. “This is really exciting for us, and something we’ve been waiting for since the day they took the sport out of the Olympics”.
“We want to take sport to the youth“, said International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
Agreements have been reached with all the world’s pro baseball leagues except those in the United States and thus it is not completely certain whether Major League players will be allowed to compete, said Carraro.
The five were put forward for inclusion a year ago by Tokyo organizers, taking advantage of new International Olympic Committee rules that allow host cities to propose the inclusion of additional sports for their Games.
Although baseball (1992-2008) and softball (1996-2008) were previously designated as Olympic sports, the other three sports are completely new to Olympic competition.
However, the five additions are only for 2020.
Tokyo hopes that the 2020 Games, through the five sports, will show how the quadrennial sporting event should be in the future, he said. These new events are made possible by the International Olympic Committee rule of permitting the host city to propose new events with approval of the IOC.
Until yesterday, the Winter Games had been quicker to cater to youthful tastes, adding snowboarding in 1998 and, more recently, slopestyle. Sports climbing, also in urban Tokyo, will feature men’s and women’s competitions for bouldering, lead and speed combined with a total of 474 athletes to compete in the five sports.
For now, existing sports are not affected. The IOC Executive Board will not finalize the final plans for the 2020 Olympics until mid-2017.
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The only current Summer Olympics event classified as an “action sport” is BMX cycling, and it has proved a hugely popular addition since its Beijing debut. The two were rejected in separate bids to return this year’s Olympics, so they combined forces to put forward a single bid for inclusion in Tokyo.
