At its 134th Session, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) yesterday accepted the proposal of the Paris Organizing Committee of the Olympic & Paralympic Games (Paris 2024) to include four additional sports at the 33rd Summer Olympic Games: breaking, skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing.
The Olympic Games in Paris are set to be the third Olympic medal event for sport climbing, not yet a permanent sport in the Olympics. Olympic Agenda 2020 paved the way for Organizing Committees to propose additional events for individual Olympic Games, pending confirmation by the IOC. Sport climbing was confirmed in 2016 for the Olympic Games in Tokyo as well as the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, which took place last October.
Different from in Tokyo, the sport climbing event in Paris would expand from one to two distinct competitions, six to twelve medals and 40 to 72 athletes in total. Under the proposal, 16 women and 16 men would compete for six medals in the Speed discipline; 20 women and 20 men would compete for six medals based on the combination of their results in the Bouldering and Lead disciplines.
Still provisional, the Olympic Programme Commission will now continue its analysis of the four sports proposed by Paris 2024, including observations at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. The IOC Executive Board will then make the final decision on the existing events, proposed new events and related athlete quotas for the Olympic Games Paris 2024 in December 2020.
“Another hold up in our climb! The IFSC is proud to be part of the Paris 2024 proposal,” says Marco Scolaris, President of the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). “Together with the sports already confirmed, these four new proposed sports will offer to the world the best possible program for the Olympic Games. Therefore, we have to work harder than ever to organize an unforgettable event in Tokyo 2020, to secure our position for Paris 2024!”
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