Since the first modern Olympic Games, organized in Athens in 1896 by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the sports and events contested have continued to diversify, even if certain disciplines were quickly abandoned. The first editions were exclusively for men, and it took one hundred and twenty-five years for (almost) all disciplines to be practiced by women as well.
Four new disciplines in Tokyo
Karate, skateboarding, rock climbing and surfing make their historic entry into the Olympics this year as baseball is back – it had competed in five editions from 1992 to 2008 but was not selected for the 2012 and 2016 Games. Sixteen new events will be contested: four in karate, two in skateboarding, one in climbing, one in surfing, and one in baseball, with, for each discipline, a male and a female competition.
Among these five additional sports in Tokyo, three (skateboarding, climbing and surfing) will be renewed in 2024 in Paris. There will be breaking, where teams compete in dance battles. The discipline appeared on the program of the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in 2018.
Golf and rugby, which reappeared in Rio in 2016, will also be present this year in Tokyo. These two disciplines were contested in several editions at the beginning of the XXe century before disappearing from the Olympic list.
To maintain or integrate the Olympic list, sports are evaluated by a commission according to their history, popularity, universality, but also technical and economic criteria. The exclusion of football from the 1932 Games reflects the differences between the IOC and FIFA on the issue of amateurism and professionalism. This was regulated by the creation of a professional World Cup in 1931. The same reasons led to the exclusion of tennis from the Olympic program from 1928, and this for sixty years.
Ten sports appeared at the beginning of the last century, to be abandoned after only a few editions. Among them, polo and tug of war were contested in five and six Games respectively. As for ice hockey and figure skating, introduced in 1920 in Antwerp, they were included in the Winter Games from the first edition, in 1924.
Eight times more events than in the first Games
Nine sports were selected for the first edition of the Modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, which were divided into forty-three events. For example, twelve athletics events were contested: 100m, 400m, shot put and discus, triple jump… and the marathon, created for the occasion.
This number doubled from the second edition in Paris in 1900 with eighty-five proofs, then increased to reach three hundred proofs on the eve of the XXI.e century in Sydney. An increase linked to the entry of new sports, but also to the subdivision of certain sports into athletes’ weight categories (for combat sports), and the integration of women’s events. In Tokyo, competitors will compete in three hundred and thirty-nine events from thirty-three different sports.
Near parity in the events for the first time in Tokyo
With a handful of events, the parity of the events would have been perfect this year. It should be noted that an entire discipline, Greco-Roman wrestling (six events, one per weight category) does not have its feminine version, unlike freestyle wrestling and other combat sports. Conversely, the two synchronized swimming events are exclusively female. Finally, eighteen events are mixed, including all equestrian events.