Wakeboarding Aiming for YOG, Tokyo 2020 -- Federations Focus

(ATR) The president of the wakeboarding federation says attempts will be made to reach the program for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Buenos Aires 2018 Youth Olympics.

International Waterski & Wakeboarding Federation president Kuno Ritschard tells Around the Rings that he has been in contact with organizers from both events about the possibility of adding wakeboarding.

Ritschard says the federation held a successful event in Tokyo three years ago, and the appeal would be similar to that of snowboarding in the Winter Olympics.

"The advantage of our event is that people can see all the action on the water," said Ritschard. "In snowboard, they have to look at the action on the screen. Our tricks and our judging system is completely similar to snowboarding."

Events could be held in the evening at the canoeing and rowing venue so as not to disturb the existing events schedule, Rischard says. The only cost would be that of a cableway system, which would be about $70,000 and reusable for future events.

The field would include 30 men and 30 women, and the entire event could be completed in two to three days with the possibility of qualifications taking place prior to the opening ceremony.

Ritschard says the federation has gotten good feedback from Youth Olympic Games host Buenos Aires, who is "keen to have us."

The critical development for wakeboarding and other sports hoping to join the program has been the IOC reforms passed earlier this month in Monaco.

"For us, the rule about 28 sports made it nearly imp for any new sport to go into the Olympic Games."

Curling Coming Home

Curling will rock Scotland from 2016 to 2020.

The home of curling was awarded four world championships on December 23.

Glasgow will host the 2020 men’s curling world championships. The 2016 European Championships, which will take place in Renfrewshire, are the first event on the calendar for Scotland. After that, the world junior curling championships are scheduled for 2018 in Aberdeen and the world wheelchair curling championship 2019 in Stirling.

WCF president Kate Caithness said awarding multiple championships at once is proving beneficial for the WCF.

"Following on from the double host awards to Esbjerg in Denmark and Lohja, Finland, this form of multiple event bidding is becoming increasingly popular amongst our Member Associations and is proving to be an attractive proposition for the World Curling Federation."

Badminton Pushes Back Scoring Change

A change in the badminton scoring structure will not come until after the Rio Olympics.

The secretary general of the Badminton World Federation says there is still a chance of converting to a five-game, 11-point system, but it will not happen prior to April’s Olympic qualification. The current system features three games of 21 points.

"The system is definitely not scrapped. It has just been put on hold as it was too significant a change before the Olympics qualifying year. We consulted players, especially the ones who would be affected by that, who had a big say in the decision. We will continue testing the system and take a decision on implementing it after the Olympics," BWF secretary general Thomas Lund told the Times of India.

The BWF originally announced in June that it would begin testing a new system in August. Lund says engaging audiences, both in person and through television, was at the heart of the change.

"One of the other factors that we have integrated into the game is the instant review system. We also want to improve the standard of presentation to make it an experience for spectators and we have done that here."

Written by Nick Devlin and Ed Hula III

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