You’re in! Baseball/softball, 4 other sports make Tokyo cut

Baseball and softball are coming back to the Olympics.

Wednesday voted to approve Tokyo’s 2020 recommendation that baseball, along with softball, climbing, sailing, skateboarding and karate be added to the Olympic program.

Baseball and softball were last staged at the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008 and have since sought re-inclusion.

International Olympic Committee members voted unanimously to accept the five-sport package, which also includes skateboarding, surfing, karate and sport climbing.

Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan and is sure to be well-attended at the Tokyo Olympics.

Craig Cress, executive director of USA Softball, said many young players had suffered after the sport was removed from the games.

The sports chosen were proposed by the Tokyo 2020 organizing committee, and are disciplines with established or growing popularity in Japan.

However, officials had to admit that they have yet to reach an agreement with Major League Baseball in the United States about the participation of its stars.

Karate is a striking-focused combat sport, while judo derives from jujitsu, a grappling martial art.

Surfing could face challenges in remaining in the Games beyond Tokyo because of the nature of the sport.

The worldwide federations of baseball and softball, which in 2008 suffered the humiliation of being excluded from the 2012 and 2016 Games, are now returning to the Olympics after mounting an active campaign to recover their Olympic status. It expects to hold numerous new events at venues installed in urban settings, in an effort to bring the games closer to younger generations.

The five sports were proposed by the organising committee of the Tokyo Games and Bach’s idea is that all future hosts should be able to suggest their own choices – today’s decision only relates to Tokyo and all five could be dropped in 2024. “We have been striving for many years to achieve Olympic Games inclusion and we certainly believe the Olympics will be better off with our sport’s inclusion”.

For starters, national women’s softball teams from across the globe will begin to receive more funding, which should mean tournaments such as the just-revived Canada Cup – set for Softball City in 2017 – should see an influx of talent.

“Furthermore, our report highlights the power and potential of action sports inclusion into the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games, as well as some of the ongoing and new challenges for such significant changes to both the infrastructure of action sports cultures and industries, and to the transforming landscape of Olympic sport”.

“We think that surfing appeals globally, and in that sense, our focus will be in making our appearance in the Olympic Games very memorable”, he said.

Some in the skating world were not convinced that the addition of skating to the Olympics was a good idea.