In an effort to reach out to a younger generation, the International Olympic Committee is adding a handful of new sports to the Olympics.
The new sports that will be added are karate, skateboarding, sports climbing, surfing and baseball, along with softball. All five will be on the Olympic program for the 2020 summer games in Tokyo.
In a press release announcing the decision, IOC President Thomas Bach explained how the expansion targeted young people, saying,
We want to take sport to the youth. With the many options that young people have, we cannot expect any more that they will come automatically to us. We have to go to them... 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.
The sports that stick out in this regard are pretty obvious.
Japan's love for baseball is widely known and the country has a professional league that has produced numerous Major League Baseball talents.
And then there's karate, which originated from a region that is part of modern-day Japan.
So it seems fitting both of those sports will be on the schedule once the Olympics makes its way to Japan in 2020. As for the others, it should be interesting to see what impact sports like surfing can make, especially if it introduces its most charismatic stars on the world's stage.
[olympics]
Citations: Olympic.org
