What new sports have been added to the Olympic programme
Five new sports have been added to the programme for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, making their Olympic debut. They are karate, breakdancing, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing. The International Olympic Committee deemed these sports worthy of inclusion in the programme, as they would ensure a balanced programme and add variety to the games. It’s also important that a lot of young people are keen on these sports and that getting Olympic status would be an additional incentive for young people to get involved in sport.
Break dance
For the first time breakdancing or breakdancing appeared in the program of the Youth Games, held in 2018 in Buenos Aires. The main reason for its inclusion in the Olympic programme was to further attract young people to the sport of high performance. The culture of official breakout competitions is just now taking shape. So far there are only team competitions, but in the Olympics 2024 in Paris there are already declared solo programs.
During the competition, an athlete does not know what music he or she will be performing to. The difficulty is that they will have to orientate themselves quickly. In judging the performances the judges will take into account three basic criteria: creativity, musicality and technicality. However, there is no complete information on how the judging of the breakdancing competitions will be carried out during the forthcoming Olympics.
Sport climbing
The Tokyo Games were the first Olympics during which competition in the sport, which gained Olympic status in 2018, took place. Athletes competed in three basic disciplines.
Difficulty climbing. A vertical route unfamiliar to the athlete was tackled. One attempt was given, during which the longest distance had to be covered within a limited time.
Speed climbing. It was necessary as quickly as possible to overcome a standard 15-metre route with an incline of 5 degrees.
Bouldering. Short sections of the route are overcome for a limited time. There is no safety net for this programme, and spectators consider it to be the most spectacular.
Surfing
Inclusion of this sport on the Olympic programme is a personal achievement of Aguerre, President of the International Surfing Association who has been pushing for this for a long time. Aguerre’s main argument: surfing is a sport for young people and therefore very promising and worthy of reaching the highest level.
The Olympic programme now includes competitions in natural conditions without the use of artificial wave technology. This causes certain difficulties. In particular, it is difficult to plan the competitions, because a lot depends on weather conditions. Therefore the possibility of competitions in a simulated environment is being considered.
Skateboarding
For representatives of this sport in Tokyo, they built special skate parks, simulating an urban environment. The athletes had to complete the program in two 45-second attempts. Performances were graded on a 100-point scale. The number of tricks that could be done in the allotted time, as well as the difficulty of the programme, were taken into account.
Karate
Karate is the third martial art included in the Olympic program. It already includes judo and taekwondo. The popularity and entertainment of karate were the main arguments for it to become an Olympic sport.
Competitors compete in two disciplines: kata (men and women) and kumite (men and women distributed by weight category). In each category, one athlete represents a participating country.
