The Olympics are a way of announcing on the world stage that a country has arrived. Further, the host nation can introduce a sport, on a demonstration basis. Thus it was the Judo entered the Olympics, in the 1964 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Japan. Taekwondo made its first appearance at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Kore, as a demonstration sport at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Taekwondo was again a demonstration sport at the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Spain. There were no demonstration sports at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, USA. And at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, Taekwondo became a full medal sport and has been ever since.
Now Karate is making its first appearance at the Olympics, at the 2020 Summer Olympics, in Tokyo, Japan. Karate will be joined by baseball/softball, skateboarding, sports climbing, and surfing. This is of course a clear appeal to the younger generation.
Unfortunately for karate fans, the additional sports in Tokyo will not be binding on future host cities.
The official website of the International Olympic Committee has the story.
The decision by the 129th IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro was the most comprehensive evolution of the Olympic program in modern history. Plans call for staging the skateboarding and sports climbing events in temporary venues installed in urban settings, marking a historic step in bringing the Games to young people and reflecting the trend of urbanization of sport.
We want to take sport to the youth,” said IOC President Thomas Bach. “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. Tokyo 2020’s balanced proposal fulfills all of the goals of the Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendation that allowed it. 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 IOC considered a variety of factors when assessing the proposal, including the impact on gender equality, the youth appeal of the sports and the legacy value of adding them to the Tokyo Games.
WKF Highlights:
The karate event in the Olympics will be run by the World Karate Federation, which in turn grew out of the World Union of Karate-do Organizations.
