The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Wednesday approved five new sports for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, including baseball and softball, karate, skateboard, sports climbing and surfing.
The decision by the 129th IOC Session in Rio de Janeiro underlined the top sports organization's effort to attract young people.
The IOC session voted unanimously in favor of the sports which were proposed by the 2020 organizers and will make a one-off appearance in the Games.
Under new rules, Olympic host cities can hand-pick sports they want in the Games to join the existing 28 core sports.
"Today's vote was the culmination of a two-year process that began with the unanimous approval of the IOC's strategic roadmap in 2014. The recommendation to give Organizing Committees the flexibility to propose new sports for their edition of the Games was intended to put even more focus on innovation, flexibility and youth in the development Olympic programme," said the IOC in a statement.
"We want to take sport to the youth... Tokyo 2020's balanced proposal fulfils all of the goals of the Olympic Agenda 2020 recommendation that allowed it. Taken together, the five sports are an innovative combination of established and emerging, youth-focused events that are popular in Japan and will add to the legacy of the Tokyo Games," said IOC President Thomas Bach.
The inclusion of the new sports will add 18 events and 474 athletes while the athlete or event quotas of existing Olympic sports will not be affected.
