2020 OLYMPICS

Surfing, basketball, table tennis and many other sports are going to be featured at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. It has been 56 years since Tokyo has had the Olympics in their city. Athletes around the world have been preparing for the Summer Olympics for years. The 1964 Olympics transformed Japan’s capital greatly and Japan officials hope for that in 2020. Japan is also the first country in Asia to hold the Olympics.

The 2020 games are making headlines about the addition of new sports never featured in the Olympics. Some of the new sports being introduced are softball, karate and skateboarding. Athletes of the new sports are excited because of their chance to compete in the games and become accepted on such a high athletic platform. With new sports being added to the roster, athletes that could not have competed in the past are going to be given a chance to compete for a gold metal.

One of the weirdest sports being added is undoubtedly rock climbing, or officially called by the Olympic committee, “sport climbing.” It could be considered out of the ordinary because it is usually not seen in a competitive light, and usually is displayed at carnivals and fairs; but there are other views like those of Suncoast student Jack Baumann. Jack explained, “I believe that anything can be a sport as long as it involves some sort physical assertion and there is someway to evaluate their performance.”

Since the environmental catastrophes of the last summer Olympics in Rio, examples being the presence of Zika and rivers overflowing with trash, there have been concerns of how the Olympics in Tokyo will affect the environment with the addition of new aquatic sports and also the conditions of the Olympic stadium. The overall condition of Shidashita Beach, which is the location for surfing in the Olympics, seemed fine when photos of Shidashita Beach are found and despite Japan’s giant population it has one of the least amounts of waste per person. As for the conditions of the stadium, Tokyo has done a good job at maintaining the Olympic stadium unlike many other countries that have their Olympic stadiums look like abandoned wastelands.

The Olympics are overall looked forward to and enjoyed in many nations around the globe. Athletes all around the world train for many years just to compete for a 14 day event. It is great to see nations put aside their differences to come together for the love of sports. Tokyo is proud to hold the prestigious 2020 Olympics, which is evident in the celebration during the Olympic conference when Japan won the host spot of the 2020 Olympics, with many of the new sports being introduced as a result of the changing definition of what is a sport.