New Sports That Debuted at the Summer Olympics

Every four years, the world sits back with excitement to watch athletes from around the world compete for the ultimate prize in sports – the Olympic gold medal. This year the 2024 Summer Olympics took place in Paris, France, and kicked off in grand style on Friday, July 26 with athletes representing 206 National Olympic Committees cruising down the Seine. (The 2028 games will be held in Los Angeles.) The latest sports to become part of the Summer Olympics have viewers intrigued.

Each host city and country gets unique privileges regarding the Olympic program. They have a say in what the possible demonstration and optional sports may be. There are currently 32 confirmed sports at the 2024 Summer Olympics. The Olympic Program changes to suit the evolving landscape of sports performance on a global stage. Sports exhibited at the Games change each time. The IOC looks at whether to add or remove sports from the main program and the hosting country is allowed to pitch several events that are "unofficial" to add to the program that showcase their nation's most common sports pastimes.

We looked at the sports added both officially and unofficially for the 2024 Summer Olympic program in Paris but also looked at other years to see what other countries had done to make the program unique in their hosting years. (After this article, check out 14 Times the Olympics Were Canceled, Boycotted, or Postponed.)

Becoming part of the Olympic program is a huge task for sports organizers. The original Olympic Games revival event in 1896 had just 241 competitors. However, the event now hosts over 10,000 participants. Dozens of changes and additions have been made to the Olympic program with over 100 new events having been added since 1980.

There's an official process filled with bureaucracy and rules that a sport has to follow before it can become an Olympic sport. The process starts by gaining recognition from the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The IOC requires that the activity have an administration handled by an international, non-governmental organization that oversees at least one sport. This organization will be responsible for all of the sport's Olympic duties, from determining the scoring system to handling qualification events for the Olympics.

Once a sport has IOC recognition, it enters International Federation Status. In this status, the sport must begin enforcing the World Anti-Doping Code and must maintain the rules set forth by the Olympic charter within their events and organization. A sport can enter this status and still never become a true Olympic event that competes officially at the Games.

For instance, bowling and chess are both IOC-recognized sports but do not compete officially at the Olympics. However, they have been shown as demonstration sports in previous runnings of the Games. The sport's IF must then apply for admittance to the Games by filing a petition establishing its criteria of eligibility to the IOC.

The IOC may then admit the sport into the Olympic program, as one of three things: a sport, a discipline (a branch of a sport), or an event (a competition within a discipline.) For instance, the triathlon is a sport, women's wrestling is a wrestling discipline, and pole vaulting is a track-and-field event. The rules differ slightly based on whether the activity becomes a sport, discipline, or event.

When choosing new activities to enter the Olympic program, the IOC considers many factors. A major factor they consider is the overall length of the program. With more sports, disciplines, and events, more time is required to adequately showcase all of them. Thus, in more recent years, the IOC has focused on only introducing new activities to the program when they discontinue existing activities to keep the program's length roughly the same.

There are also logistical factors that go into whether a sport can be chosen for the Olympic program. Sports like softball and baseball require specialized fields that can be harder to find accommodations for at a venue. In most cases, the venue for these sports would have to be built specifically for the Olympics, which is something the IOC wants to avoid if possible.

Building unique structures for a one-time event makes hosting the Olympics unattainable for many cities which might lack the funds to make major changes to their infrastructure for the Olympics. Thus, these sports haven't seen formal inclusion into the program even if they would otherwise satisfy all other requirements to be included.

Finally, there's the matter of public attention. Public interest is one of the key drivers of the Olympics and there's no point in including a sport that will garner no attention from viewers. Sports and activities that are less flashy or only prominent in certain areas won't draw the spectatorship needed for the event to maintain itself financially, which is a huge issue for host nations and cities that will be sinking millions or more into the construction of the infrastructure needed to host the Games.

The "core" sports are the sports, disciplines, and events that are mandatory to be exhibited at any showing of the Olympic Games. This list can change and be updated year by year and as of 2022, there were 28 core sports. In 2024, there were three new sports added to the program, and another optional sport was shown at the Paris Summer Olympics in addition to the 28 core sports, making for 32 total events.

The core sports are chosen through the process of determining media and public interest and internal logistics. Naturally, the IOC doesn't want to choose any sports that would require additional facilities beyond what a metropolitan city can typically provide. While some level of infrastructure will need to be built for any Olympic Games, they don't want to place unnecessary financial stress on the host city by including too many activities that would require unique infrastructure, especially ones like baseball and softball, where the fields typically can't be used for another event later.

The Core Sports in the Summer Olympics as of 2024 are as follows:

• Aquatics, further divided into the disciplines of Artistic Swimming, Diving, Marathon Swimming, Swimming, and Water Polo
• Archery
• Athletics
• Badminton
• Basketball, further divided into the 3×3 and full-team disciplines
• Boxing
• Canoeing, further divided into the Spring and Slalom disciplines
• Cycling, further divided into the BMX freestyle, BMX racing, Mountain Bike, Road, and Track disciplines
• Equestrian, further divided into the Dressage, Eventing, and Jumping disciplines
• Fencing
• Field Hockey
• Football
• Golf
• Gymnastics, further divided into the Artistic, Rhythmic, and Trampoline disciplines
• Handball
• Judo
• Modern Pentathlon
• Rugby
• Sailing
• Shooting
• Table Tennis
• Taekwondo
• Tennis
• Volleyball, further split into the Beach and Indoor disciplines
• Weightlifting
• Wrestling further split into the Freestyle and Greco-Roman disciplines

Demonstration sports at the Olympics aren't approved by the official program but are chosen by the host city. The demonstration sports shown at the Olympics change each year as different host cities and countries have different sports they prefer to demonstrate during their time hosting.

The IOC determines how many demonstration events are allowed and the country and city hosting is then able to slot in different demonstrations during these set points in the program. There were no demonstration sports announced for the 2024 Summer Olympics. However, one optional official sport is making its debut at the 2024 Games, and that is breaking. Breaking—also known as breakdancing—was pitched for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, but was ultimately not chosen to be included in the program. However, for the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, Breaking made its official debut as an optional sport.

Demonstration sports during previous Summer Olympics events were as follows:

• American Football (1932)
• Australian Football (1956)
• Budo (1964)
• Gliding (1936)
• Korfball (1928)
• La canne (1924)
• Pesäpallo (1952)
• Roller Hockey (1992)
• Savate (1924)
• Swedish (Ling) Gymnastics (1948)
• Water Skiing (1972)

There were no demonstrations held during the 1976 or 1980 Olympic Games due to the IOC temporarily terminating the events.

Unofficial sports are sporting events held during the Olympic program that do not have to be recognized by the IOC as demonstration sports. There is some dispute among scholars and experts around the inclusion of unofficial sports before their official designation by the IOC. Events held during the Games before 1924 are considered to be demonstration sports by Olympic scholars but not by the IOC.

Bowling at the 1988 games was considered an exhibition sport, along with badminton. In these cases, they were not part of the official Olympic schedule and did not require IOC approval for staging, unlike demonstration sports.

Art competitions were held at the Olympics between the years 1912 and 1948 and medals were awarded for these events. However, the IOC does not consider these medals to be equivalent to an Olympic medal for an official event. Additionally, medals have been awarded for feats in alpinism and aeronautics despite these not being considered official sports. The unofficial sports are as follows:

• Aeronautics (1936)
• Angling (1900)
• Art competitions (1912–1948)
• Ballooning (1900)
• Boules (1900)
• Bowling (1988)
• Cannon shooting (1900)
• Chess (2000)
• Fire fighting (1900)
• Cycle polo (1908)
• Gaelic football (1904)
• Glima (1908, 1912)
• Gotland sports (1912)
• Hurling (1904)
• Indian sports (1936)
• Kaasten (1928)
• Kite flying (1900)
• Life saving (1900)
• Longue Paume (1900)
• Motor racing (1900, 1936)
• Motorcycle racing (1900)
• Pigeon racing (1900)
• Pistol dueling (1906, 1908)
• Wheelchair racing (1984–2004)
• Wushu (1936, 2008)

Breaking or, more informally, breakdancing, is a new Olympic event that debuted at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris. It was originally pitched several years ago, for the Tokyo Summer Olympics in 2021. It was ultimately passed over in favor of more demonstrations of more culturally prominent Japanese sports like karate and baseball.

It was previously shown at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics. IOC President Thomas Bach stated that they added the sport to increase interest and participation in the Olympic games by younger generations. Breaking is a style of urban dancing that originated in the 1970s in the United States in the Bronx, New York. It has roots in hip-hop culture and was first documented as we know it today at lively block parties.

Its unique characteristics include acrobatic movements, heavily stylized footwork, stunting, and the key role of the DJ and Master of Ceremonies that goes beyond that of more traditional dance styles.

While integration of breaking into the Olympic scene has been slow, international breaking competitions have been held since the 1990s. These competitions brought the breaking dance style to the forefront of popular culture. They made it famous among both hip-hop communities and the general public.

The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris had two breaking medal events, one for men and one for women. In total, 32 competitors – 16 men and 16 women – were at the event. (It will likely not be back at the 2028 games in Los Angeles.)

The sport climbing event initially debuted as an optional event at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. However, its reception was good and the IOC opted to add it to the official program, with it also set to return for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles according to the IOC. The original sport climbing event was altered slightly to include three disciplines of the sport and events therein.

The three disciplines of sport climbing were bouldering, lead, and speed. The original combined event at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics used a single format for each gender with the scoring system multiplying a placement from each discipline. This resulted in a significant overlap in boulder-and-lead tandem and speed-climbing specialists.

In 2024, it was split into a two-event format, a bouldering/lead combined event, and a separate speed climbing event. There was a total of 68 quota places (28 for speed and 40 for the boulder-and-lead combined) available for competitors at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. There are 70% more spaces for competitors in the 2024 Summer Olympics compared to the 2020 Games.

Olympic Skateboarding also debuted at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics as an optional sport but will be returning to the Olympic schedule and added as a Summer Games sport starting for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. Skateboarding is a sport that began in the 1950s when surfing was taking off. It represented thrill-seekers and rebellious types with a sport that gave them a rush of adrenaline.

The sport has roots as a street sport, with participants riding urban courses of steps, rails, and other obstacles, and incorporating them into their stunts. Its origins make it unique among Olympic sports. Like with breaking, skateboarding is a newer addition to the roster aimed at drawing more attention to the Olympics from younger generations.

The Olympic sport of skateboarding is split into two disciplines — street and park skating. Street skating returns the competitors to their home turf by constructing a course made of common urban structures used by skateboarders, like rails, ramps, and steps.

The park event uses a skatepark structure built out of pools, ramps, and other infrastructure found at dedicated skate parks. Competitors are scored based on the height, speed, and quality of their tricks. They are also scored on the difficulty associated with the tricks they perform. Park skaters do three 45-second runs and their final score is the best of the three. In their event, street skaters do two 45-second runs of the course.

Another event that first debuted at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics is surfing. Surfing has had a long road trying to get onto the Olympic program. The IOC had two main concerns with including surfing as one of the sports in the Summer Olympics, despite there being little question that it should have been. The first issue is that surfing is a relatively dangerous sport and the IOC is unwilling to take on the additional liability posed by implementing surfing events.

Additionally, they feared that including surfing, which requires an ocean venue, would put an undue burden on landlocked countries that wanted to host the Olympics. However, the success of surfing after its inclusion in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics was unreal. Thus, the IOC has decided to include it for 2024 and 2028. In September 2015, the IOC announced the shortlist of sports to be included in the 2020 Summer Olympics.

The shortlist included baseball, karate, and sport climbing as well. They ultimately approved all the sports that made the shortlist, though they grouped baseball and softball into one sport. After the success of these events, surfing, sport climbing, and skateboarding were all selected to be featured again. There is hope that these sports will become core to the Summer Olympics roster. They are popular with younger audiences and improve the ongoing financial stability of the Olympics as the population's interests change.

Karate, baseball, and softball (the latter two combined into one sport) were all shortlisted and approved for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics. However, they were not chosen to be brought back for the 2024 or 2028 events. Sources say that karate made the shortlist for 2028, but was ultimately not selected.

Baseball and softball were considered logistically unsound as procuring the stadium for the event could put an undue burden on countries where these sports are not prevalent (although baseball is coming back for the 2028 L.A. Olympics).

The IOC also rejected other events like wushu for inclusion in the most recent Summer Olympics despite previous inclusions. These sports may return as demonstration sports, unofficial sports, or even see a revival as an official sport in a later event. However, we did not see them at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

According to sources, it's unlikely we'll see them at the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. (Next, read The Locations of the Last 31 Summer Olympic Games.)