Vote on new sports for Tokyo Games on hold until 2016
The International Olympic Committee said that the final decision on which new sports will be added to the Olympic program for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics will not be made in August 2016.
That vote was originally supposed to take place this year, but will now be conducted on Aug. 4, 2016, the day before the start of the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro.
"While we were thinking originally the additional events timetable could be completed in July (2015), that is too ambitious," IOC Vice President John Coates said, according to the Associated Press. "In the interest of transparency, that is too tight a timetable."
In December, the IOC approved, under the "Olympic Agenda 2020,” a flexible sports program allowing for sports such as baseball and softball to return to the Olympic program.
The IOC dropped baseball and softball from the Olympics after the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing. Those two sports, along with karate, roller sports, skateboarding, surfing, wushu, rock climbing, and billiards and snooker are lobbying to be including in the program.
The “Olympic Agenda 2020" also allowed host cities to propose adding one or more events for their games.
“The whole world is looking at this process, not just the people of Japan," Coates said. "Many sports are interested and this is going to be a very transparent process."
- Scooby Axson
