Tokyo 2020 Seeks Youth Engagement With New Sports

(ATR) Two of the five sports added to the Olympic Program for 2020 will be held in an area that will be one of the "symbolic locations" for the Tokyo Summer Games.

Tokyo 2020 tells Around the Rings that sport climbing at the Aomi Urban Sport Venue and skateboarding at the Olympic BMX course in Ariake will help engage youth around the world.

The Aomi Urban Sports Venue is a temporary facility near the Olympic Village. It will host the new discipline of 3x3 basketball while the Olympic BMX course will be home to freestyle -- another new discipline -- in addition to BMX racing.The BMX facility will be built in the northern part of Tokyo's Ariake district, an iconic waterfront area of the Japanese capital.

Both venues are located in the Tokyo Bay Zone. Tokyo 2020 wants to make the most of their proximity, saying it will be working in cooperation with the Tokyo Metropolitan Government to create "one of the greatest festival districts in Olympic and Paralympic history".

As for the other two sports making Olympic debuts in Tokyo -- karate will be held in the Nippon Budokan and surfing will be at the Tsurigasaki Beach Surfing Venue.

Baseball/softball returns to the Olympics for the first time since 2008 in Beijing. Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan and it was no surprise that it made the cut for Tokyo 2020.

Yokohama Stadium, some 40km from Tokyo, will host all but one game in each of the tournaments. Fukushima Azuma Baseball Stadium will be the venue for Japan's opening games for both the baseball and softball competitions. Fukushima was devastated by the 2011 tsunami, earthquake and nuclear disaster.

Tokyo 2020 organizers say it will be a great opportunity for the country to show its appreciation for the support it received from around the world as well as to demonstrate the power of sport.

The five sports bring a total of 18 additional events to the Tokyo Games. The development of the session schedule is ongoing and is expected to be finalized by this summer.

Paris 2024 to Begin the Process Soon

The process to choose the additional sports for Paris will begin in earnest this summer, with meetings between the IOC and Paris 2024.

Those talks should determine the number of new sports to be chosen and how many of the sports added for Tokyo 2020 should stay in the program.

A timeline and specifications for bidding are expected to be ready by the end of this year with an eye toward preparing the final program by the end of 2020. At this point Paris 2024 wants a process that will narrow the number of federations involved before the bidding phase begins, a departure from how Tokyo 2020 did it.

This story is part of Around the Rings' first special edition magazine of the year, and our preview of events in South America, Asia and Europe.

Click here to read the full magazine onATR's website.

Written by Gerard Farek

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