Surfing and Skateboaring Are Going to Make the 2020 Olympics Totally X-Treme
But not everyone thinks this news is chill.
The International Olympic Committee announced Wednesday that the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo will add five new sports, three of which promise to make them the most XTREME games of all-time.
Skateboarding, surfing and climbing will all make their Olympic debut in Tokyo (baseball/softball and karate were added too, but zzzzzz) in what is an obvious attempt by the IOC to attract more young eyeballs to the Games.
“We want to take sport to the youth,” IOC president Thomas Bach said. “With the many options that young people have, we cannot expect any more that they will come automatically to us. We have to go to them.”
News of each sports inclusion in the 2020 Games was greeted positively by the presidents of their respective organizing bodies. But the idea of mainstreaming the sports, especially skating and surfing, hasn’t sat so well with some of the rank and file.
How to ruin the stoke: Turn it into an Olympic sport. #surfing
— Kym Edwardes-Evans (@thetinybasher) August 3, 2016
Skateboarding has no rules that's what makes it the best. Adding it to the olympics is gonna ruin it for the next generation. Trust me.
— ®️ (@RairOnline) August 3, 2016
https://twitter.com/AwfullyBrittish/status/760952971194753029
Well, surfing made the olympics. Another step in trying to cram surfing and surf culture into a pill that the mainstream will swallow.
— Mark Healey (@healeysurf) August 3, 2016
The complaints are predictable. Surfers and skaters are afraid that their sports are going to be ruined by the rigidity of the Games.
Then again, if Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and PacSun didn’t ruin these sports, the Olympics probably won’t either.
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