Never in the history of the modern Olympics have so many new sports debuted as in Tokyo 2020. Skateboarding, surfing, rock climbing and karate now have their first Olympic champions, while softball and baseball have returned to the Games after their last appearance in 2008.
Five years ago the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided to include these sports to attract young people. They were also relevant sports for Japan, the host country of the Games. Baseball is the most important sport in Japan, karate is traditionally preferred and skateboarding is very popular among young people.
Some of these new sports will return to Paris 2024. They have been to a large extent a success both for the audience who have attended and for the athletes who have participated, but some still have quirks to resolve before they can return.
The skateboard has arrived
I’ve been researching skateboarding and its bumpy path to the Olympics for several years so I’m definitely going to be a little biased, but in my opinion it was the one that caught the most attention of all of the five new sports, for several reasons. First of all for the age of the participants.
Surely many Olympics spectators will have been fascinated to see the youngest Olympic podium in history with an average age of 14. This group of teenagers demonstrated an extraordinary level of sportsmanship and maturity. Sky Brown, a talented 13-year-old from the British team, was the first to congratulate her Japanese opponent, Sakura Yosozumi, after the latter won the park race. The same thing happened for the duration of the competition, which saw the competitors cheering for each other and congratulating the winners of the other teams.
Skateboarding also debuted in terms of style. From the multi-colored uniforms inspired by the nineties of American skaters to the light brown cargo pants by the Brazilian Rayssa Real held up by a black skater belt to Japanese Aori Nishimura’s white uniform paired with platinum blonde hair, Olympic skateboarding outfits were praised by all.
Bryce Wettstein, a sixteen-year-old California skater, even brought her ukulele to ease the tension at the women’s park finals a bit. The Olympics are known to be an environment where the pressures are very high, and it was a real relief to see that at least as far as skateboarding is concerned, the Games were more like a gathering of teenagers having fun and cheering for each other. other.
Difficult issues for climbing
If everyone praised the innovation represented by the skateboard, with regard to sport climbing, fans were divided on the very meaning of this sport at the Olympic Games.
Sport climbing is a unique sport in the Olympic program (there is nothing like it) and it has been a great success in Tokyo especially for those who have never seen it before.
The controversy arose when the IOC decided to allocate only one series of medals to sport climbing instead of three. The federation to which the discipline refers has consequently developed a “combined” format of the three main types of climbing: boulder, lead and speed. The latter type, suitable for television, has always been considered a marginal discipline by most climbers, as well as very different from the other two.
Climbers usually specialize in a single discipline and, taking into account the different skills required for each of them, the Olympic combo can be compared to a situation in which swimmers are required to also participate in a diving competition, or to Novak Djokovic to compete for the first set in ping pong. Apparently the fears of the climbing community were not unfounded, as Adam Ondra, according to many the best climber in the world, had to spend the last year training specifically for the speed part and nevertheless failed to make it to the final.
It may seem unfair if you think of established Olympic sports such as swimming or cycling, where the same athletes can compete for numerous medals in separate disciplines or in relay races. There are many political issues behind the relationship between the IOC and action sports, but apparently they would have done better to listen to the sports community.
What awaits us in Paris 2024
The 2020 Olympics have been delayed by a year due to the pandemic, so the next summer games are only three years away. The Paris 2024 preview video presented during the Tokyo closing ceremony had a very urban and artistic feel and we can expect the games’ modernization to continue. This modernization will be partly driven by the addition of another new sport in 2024: breakdance.
Ten years ago it might have been unthinkable to see her at the Olympics (and yes, it’s a sport), but that was also true for skateboarding. Karate, baseball and softball have worked great for Japanese spectators and athletes but will be dismissed as presumably of little relevance to France, where breakdancing is a huge part of youth culture.
Surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing (thank goodness with more medals) instead will remain and help strengthen the IOC standards for games that are more youth-centered and with a greater gender balance.
The research I participated in a few years ago showed that action sports tend to marginalize women and minorities. While male action sports are still a long way from a commercial point of view, it was great to see a change in Tokyo 2020, with athletes like skater Sky Brown and surfer Carissa Moore becoming icons in traditionally male-dominated sports. .
Over the next few years, expect to see more girls on skateboarding, surfing spots and climbing gyms. And we hope that the sports federations will offer them the same support so that the best ones can become the next generation of Olympic champions.
(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)
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