How do sports get added to the olympics

Sometimes, those sports even went on to become full Olympic sports. In , for instance, Los Angeles presented demonstrations of baseball and tennis, both of which were later added as medal events at future Games. Now, every sport that makes it into the games sends its victors home with shiny new hardware. Essentially, lots of countries need to love your sport, which will give you an athlete base and an audience to hold regional events, which will then allow you to expand to international events, which will hopefully eventually land your event in the Olympics.

The IOC has a list of criteria it checks off for inclusion, but those criteria are somewhat nebulous, as you can see discussed here by the international federation governing the sport of muaythai , which was granted provisional recognition by the IOC just this year.

Building the right connections within the IOC is a must, as is navigating many other sports federations and competitions. Breakdancing, for instance, will make its Olympics debut in after a successful trial run at the Youth Olympics in Buenos Aires. The Youth Olympics are held every four years but on an alternating schedule, so the Winter Youth Olympics happen in years when there is a Summer Olympics and vice versa. The use of the Youth Olympics to try out new sports is a hallmark, Bauer said, of the IOC under current president Thomas Bach, who took office in Bach has kicked off numerous efforts to streamline the Games and make them more flexible.

Even with four sports added to the Games, for instance, the overall number of events will decline from to , with most of the cuts coming from the boxing and weightlifting programs. The number of women competing in Tokyo should be The flexibility developed under Bach also allows individual sports to be tried out one Olympics at a time. Surfing, for example, mostly just requires having an ocean.

This approach also allows recognized sports an opportunity to compete to be included in Games hosted by countries where they are popular. Baseball, softball, surfing, and skateboarding seem like cinches to be added to the Los Angeles Games in because all four sports are wildly popular in the US and in California more specifically.

Aguerre points out that California is the home of surfing and skateboarding culture worldwide. Any sport that is popular in America and some sports that are not but that are growing more popular around the world might bid as well.

Already, cricket which is not super popular in the US but is growing in stature , especially in areas with large South Asian immigrant populations and flag football!!

Finally, these more recent reforms allow for shifts in the longtime stranglehold that events popular in Europe have had on the Olympics.

The consolidation of baseball and softball into one federation took care of the first problem; a successful event in Tokyo could take care of the second. Baseball is also making great strides internationally, with federations spinning up all over the globe in places like South Africa, Israel, and Brazil. Still, the pro-Europe bias at the Olympics was real — and the IOC is taking steps to combat that problem too.

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Even so, there are some pretty quirky events that were included in Games past. In , she tested positive for a banned substance , but her ban from competition was later overturned. Quan Hongchan of China received the perfect scores for two out of five of her dives, winning gold.

She also won the event at the Games in Rio. The decathlon is made up of 10 separate events over two days. Olympic m explained On Day 2, they did the metre hurdles, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw and ran the 1,metre race. Warner scored an impressive 9, points to win and set an Olympic points record. Get your class on the same page, add this to Google Classroom.

Send us feedback Report a typo or inaccuracy. The Paralympics are around the corner. The Olympic Games have expanded from to more than 10, competitors since the original reestablishment in Athens with the Games. Dozens of additions and changes have been made in the Olympic program since , with almost events being added since alone. Although enthusiasts of many activities hope to see their avocations become Olympic sports, only a few receive one of the coveted slots in the Olympic program.

The IOC requires that the activity have administration by an international nongovernmental organization that oversees at least one sport. Bowling and chess are recognized sports, but they do not compete at the Games.

The IOC may then admit an activity into the Olympic program in one of three different ways: as a sport; as a discipline, which is a branch of a sport; or as an event, which is a competition within a discipline. For instance, triathlon was admitted as a sport, debuting at the Games in Sydney.

Rules for admittance vary slightly between a new sport, a discipline, and an event, but the intent is the same. Once an IF has presented its petition, many rules and regulations control whether the sport will become part of the Olympic Games.