The Olympics are thought of as being steeped in tradition, but just four sports disciplines—athletics, fencing, swimming and artistic gymnastics—have been included in every single Summer Olympics since 1896.
That first Olympics featured 43 events in nine sports, with only men competing. In Paris this summer, 329 gold medals will be awarded in 32 sports to a much more diverse athlete pool. Things have changed quite a bit over the years.
How are Olympic sports defined?
Each Olympic sport is represented by an international governing body, and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) considers a sport to encompass all disciplines governed by that federation. For instance, the sport “aquatics,” which is overseen by World Aquatics, comprises five Olympic disciplines: swimming, artistic swimming, diving, water polo and open water swimming. Most sports, however, have just one discipline.
Beginning with the 2020 Summer Games, the IOC designated a group of “core” sports, which are mandatory and persist between iterations of the Olympics. Up to six optional sports can then be proposed by the organizing committee to be added for any particular year. For 2020 in Tokyo, skateboarding, surfing, sport climbing, karate and baseball & softball were added as new Olympic sports.
Sports also often add new disciplines, such as when BMX freestyle made its first appearance under the cycling umbrella in 2020. 3×3 basketball was unveiled in Tokyo as well.
What are the new sports for the 2024 Olympics?
Breaking, an urban dance style with roots in hip-hop culture, is the only sport that will make its debut in the 2024 Olympics. Karate and baseball & softball are not returning from four years ago, but the Paris Games will bring back skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing from 2020, rounding out the lineup of four optional sports for these Olympics.
What are the new sports for the 2028 Olympics?
The five optional sports that have been approved for 2028 are baseball & softball, cricket, flag football, lacrosse and squash, while breaking will be dropped. Additionally, surfing, climbing and skateboarding will be added as core sports, with that moving the total up to 30.
What are some discontinued Olympic sports?
Early Olympic Games featured many sports that were removed after a few appearances, or in some cases just one. Tug of war, jeu de paume, croquet and water motorsports, among others, were all included in Olympic games prior to 1924.
Since World War II, nearly every sport that’s been added has been installed as a core sport. The notable outlier is baseball, which became an official sport in 1992 but was voted out in 2005, in part due to lack of participation from MLB players. Due to baseball’s popularity in Japan and the United States, it was added for the 2020 and 2028 Olympics, respectively, but remains an optional sport.
On the flip side, some early discontinued sports have found their way back into the program, including golf in 2016 and cricket in 2028. Tennis, similarly, underwent a long hiatus beginning in 1928 before making its return in 1988.
What were demonstration sports?
For most of the previous century, the Olympics included demonstration sports to either promote or gauge interest in a new sport, without officially including them in the medal count. Some sports that were introduced in this manner, such as baseball, were eventually added as official sports, but the practice of demonstration sports is no longer done.
Additionally, several sports, such as bowling in 1988 or wushu in 2008, were played even though they were not technically recognized by the IOC as demonstration sports.
Which Olympic sport has the most events?
Athletics, which despite comprising a variety of events is considered to be just a single discipline, has had the most medal events in every single Summer Olympics and will have 48 in Paris. Swimming, with 35, is the discipline with the second most.
The only other discipline to ever contain more than 20 medal events in a single summer was shooting, which had 21 events featured in Belgium in 1920 before the sport was temporarily dropped in 1928.
Generally, however, the number of events in each sport has increased over time. Weightlifting, which will have only 10 weight categories in 2024, down from 14 in 2020, is another rare exception.
Overall, the 329 events that will be contested in Paris is slightly lower than the record of 339 from the previous Summer Games.
