A success story for the IOC and Thomas Bach: new Olympic sports and the growth of mixed events

TOKYO - In the middle of a glorious Tokyo sunset, a group of lithe, sinewy young men chatted animatedly, pointing at a strange wall and swinging their arms and legs widely. It didn’t look like the Olympics, but it is the Games, more and more. That wall and other sites - an undulating concrete park, a basketball hoop in the middle of the city or a beach with powerful waves - are the big news of Tokyo 2020 and the Games to come.

Those young people were analyzing the challenge of the impending test they were to face, but instead of keeping their analysis to themselves, instead of hiding the data that can make the difference between success and failure, they held a kind of town hall meeting and shared the conclusions. Can you imagine that in soccer, tennis, basketball or other sports?

Maybe that’s why climbing, skateboarding, surfing, 3x3 basketball or BMX cycling were rewarded with the sensation of having an audience in a Games without spectators. The so-called “Olympic family”, as well as the media, flocked to the venues of those sports that Tokyo chose for its Games in September 2015 and that Buenos Aires, with its Youth Games, showed at an astonishing level and display in 2018.

Thus, before an achievement, a triumph or a medal, the applause sounded loud enough for the protagonists to feel that they were not alone or lost in Tokyo.

Besides karate, also an addition to the Games but a very traditional sport, with long history, the new sports, relaxed and laid-back, were confirmed as a success of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and its president, Thomas Bach. But not only because of the “cool” touch they bring to the Games, but also because of what they show to other sports and other athletes.

“We can no longer go somewhere and wait for the people to come, we have to go where they are,” Bach said this Friday during a press conference in Tokyo when asked how successful the debut of the new sports had been and how much the Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Games had influenced them. Translated: either the Games change from the inside or they change us from the outside.

“It is also a direct result of the excellent experience of the Youth Olympic Games, particularly the ones in Buenos Aires 2018. The concept of this urban park has helped us very much for Tokyo,” added the IOC president.

Beyond the abundant presence of the Olympic family and the media, the success of the new sports was also due to the atmosphere that was experienced in them, to the way in which, it could be said, they vibrated.

If in soccer, tennis, basketball or volleyball, very professional sports, one often sees angry gestures, shouting, kicking and serious outbursts, the debutants in the Games were different: besides helping each other, encouraging each other, helping the rival to get up if he fell, they rejoiced at the end and congratulated the winner.

If that is not the Olympic spirit, where is it then?

Bach admitted that he had doubts at the time, despite having been a strong supporter of Olympic renewal through “Agenda 2020”.

“I still remember the discussions, both sides. There was skepticism from the skateboarding community and there was skepticism from our side. They didn’t know whether they really would like this. Do we have to respect the same rules and regulations of 10,000 other athletes? And from our side it was the same. Are we ready for the skateboarders?”

Yes, they were. And they are sports that are here to stay. In Paris 2024, breakdancing or freestyle will be added, which when it was approved for the program astonished many. Tony Estanguet, at the head of these Games, thinks the same as Bach: the tastes of youth cannot be ignored if the Games, which might be those of the modern era but already 125 years old, are to maintain their strength, attractiveness and vitality.

“The Guardian” analyzed it from an original angle: “Noticing the surge in climbing’s popularity and the proliferation of indoor gyms, climbing was added to the program for Tokyo in 2016 and the IOC were no doubt delighted when Free Solo, the documentary film about Alex Honnold’s attempt to climb El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, won an Oscar in 2019.”

Another paradigmatic case is surfing. “We went out looking for one wave and found four,” Argentine Fernando Aguerre, president of the International Surfing Association (ISA), told Around the Rings.

The Tokyo 2020 wave, already successfully paddled on the beaches of Tsurigasaki, will be joined by Teahupo’o, in Tahiti, one of the most desired waves in the world and which will be part of Paris 2024, as well as the Californian beaches for Los Angeles 2028 and the Australian beaches in Brisbane 2032.

Yes, in the midst of the silence of Tokyo, a small revolution was brewing. And it was joined by the explosion of mixed events. Events such as the 4 x 400-meter mixed team relay (track), 4 x 100-meter medley (swim), mixed team triathlon, mixed team judo and mixed team trap shooting made their debut at the Games on a historic “super Saturday” on July 31.

Men and women competing together on the same teams for the same medals. As noted by “Sports Illustrated”: “This is not a new idea in the Olympic program (they played mixed doubles tennis at the 1900 Games in Paris, though the event disappeared from 1928 through 2008), but it clearly become more of an emphasis”.

Tokyo 2020 had 18 mixed-gender events in archery, athletics, badminton, equestrian, judo, sailing, shooting, swimming, table tennis, tennis and triathlon. Additionally, four International Federations have moved to gender-balanced events for the first time: canoe, rowing, shooting and weightlifting.

In a society aware as never before of the need to end gender inequality, watching men and women compete for the same medals and joyfully embrace each other at the end, or console each other if things didn’t go as expected, was refreshing.

With the new sports and mixed events, it can be said that the spirit of the Youth Games entered the senior Games, and with full force. And all indications are that in the coming years they will continue to change the Games from the inside so that they are not changed from the outside.

“What you can see with the youth games is that they are not only young athletes, but embracing, with joy, to be part of something bigger, to be part of the team, not to be so individual all the time,” Bach said. “And if you have been in the Olympic Village this is something you never forget in your life and that changes your life.”

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