The other day, the National Olympic Commitee announced that some new sports will be added for the Olympics in Tokyo. Those sports are Skateboarding, Surfing, Karate, Olympic Climbing, and Baseball/Softball. Honestly, I'm shocked it took the Olympic committee this long to add all of those sports besides Olympic Climbing.

Which of these sports make you most excited for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo? For me, the answer's simple. I've been looking forward to the moment skateboarding would be added to the Olympics for many years now. I can't believe it took this long to bring a sport to the Olympics that should've been added back when Tony Hawk was still skateboarding. The only one I probably won't watch is Olympic Climbing.

I like to look at the Olympics as a competition of the greatest athletes in the world. I know skateboarders and they have a skill and skateboarding is a sport but I wouldn't call them athletes, exactly.

The other thing is the sports that *should* be featured in the Olympics are sports played by people around the world. Everyone has the track and field events, for the most part, available to them.

Most countries don't have surfing or skateboarding. It's just not available and they don't have exposure to it as a culture. So the United States will just do their X-Games thing like the different sports during the Winter Olympics and no one else will compete because there's no one else that actually does skateboarding at an Olympic level.

Baseball has been an Olympic sport before, if I'm not mistaken, and the Japanese are very good at it. It makes sense they would get it added to the list. The same goes for karate and climbing.

I'm against skateboarding as much as I was against BMX and golf. Those sports don't follow the Olympic spirit of training hard nor need a powerful physique or exceptional power/speed. In my opinion, all sports that don't pursue that spirit should go away.

Surfing does need a bit of build, and Karate is just another variant of fighting, which has several variants in the Olympic games already, so those are in. I don't know what the hell Olympic Climbing can be, but sounds like it also needs hard training and a bit of body build to endure.

Baseball is a 50/50. You need a bit of shape to run and launch/hit the ball with enough force, but I don't follow such sport that closely so as to actually say if it fits the Olympic spirit.

The sport that should totally return is Tug-of-war. And I'm serious, it was an Olympic discipline back in the early 20th century, I think that up to the 20s.

Ghostbear1111 : Couldn't agree more with skateboarders not being athletes.

And yeah, Olympic sports should be worldwide practiced sports, but surfing is practiced at almost any coast in the world so it could fit. At least I see several places of practice in Europe, something I don't see with baseball/softball.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xETGvVi7n4o

I think these are interesting editions to the Olympic lineup. I agree with Palen that Surfing and Skateboarding are a bit unfitting because of the fact not every country actively pursues those sports, and the fact that they don't require a lot of strength and speed. But on the flipside, they are a lot more technical than one would think. So it could earn a pass for that. Rock climbing sounds fantastic though, and baseball sounds fun too. (An actual World Series...Go figure). Karate could be really fun to watch as well..

EX Palen : Just because it isn't "physically demanding" doesn't mean skateboarders aren't any more or less of an athlete. Also they have to train just as hard as anyone else to pull off their tricks. It is not much different than the super-pipe in the Winter Olympics.

EX Palen : If anything, Skateboarding is one of he most demanding, if you don't start skateboarding at a young age, you will probably never be able to get to a regular competition, let alone the olympics. It's only that most of the training you need comes at that young age, so by the time you can compete, you don't need much more.

Just the amount of balance and coordination you need is incredible. The same goes for surfing, which you wouldn't even do unless you were already really good at swimming.

I'm excited that baseball is back but I think it will only be for that year because Japan is big on baseball.

DylanMcKaig : Don't take a sport practiced on the streets to the same level of excellence surrounding the Olympic games. Honestly, you see a group of skateboarders and consider them athletes? They're better on the X-Games, where all it matters is being tough and underground.

And if you want to talk about Winter Olympics, then I have a few sports on my black list as well, one of them being super-pipe.

zanderlex : Dude, all sports are like that. You need to start young to grasp the technique, and as years pass, you train to be faster, jump higher and hit/launch an object with more power.

And yeah, baseball has big chances of staying there just for one edition. Karate can also be dropped, since we all know how respected martial arts are in Japan. We'll see if any of the other three makes it to 2024 as well or we see a few of the current sports being shut down.

EX Palen : Yes I would call them athletes because that is what they are. It takes great balance,talent and creativity to pull off anything that these guys do. They are doing the exact same thing as what every other athlete does. It might get more younger audiences into sport (that is why they are including skateboarding not only for money reasons but to broaden their audience which is a good thing). The Olympics isn't just about seeing the greatest athletes clash but celebrating sport no matter what it is. (chess and bridge are considered sports by IOC and are applying for the tokyo olympics as well).


EDIT: In actual fact the Olympics was never really about the best of the best facing each other. All of the athletes used to be amateurs and professionals weren't allowed for a while (some events are like that to an extent) The "true spirit" as they say of the Olympics was lost long ago. Now it is about "presenting sports the best way possible" as the IOC said.