The International Olympic Committee (IOC) confirmed today the inclusion of ski slopestyle (men and women), snowboard slopestyle (men and women) and snowboard parallel special slalom (men and women) on the sports programme of the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi.
The decision was taken by the IOC Executive Board (EB) ahead of the 123rd IOC Session in Durban, South Africa, and follows the inclusion in April of ski halfpipe (men and women), womens ski jumping, biathlon mixed relay, figure skating team event and luge team relay.
We are very pleased with the addition of ski and snowboard slopestyle and snowboard special slalom in the Olympic Winter Games programme, said IOC President Jacques Rogge. Such events provide great entertainment for the spectators and add further youthful appeal to our already action-packed lineup of Olympic winter sports. We look forward to welcoming all the athletes to Sochi in 2014.
The Olympic Programme Commission (OPC) initially proposed the inclusion of the events to the EB in Acapulco in October last year. The OPC studied the proposal of the individual International Sports Federations and, at the request of the EB, compiled a detailed analysis of all candidate events at their respective world championships last winter. The decision was also based on an operational feasibility study undertaken by the organisers of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Games.
The EB also agreed on a shortlist of sports that will be considered for inclusion in the sports programme of the 2020 Olympiad. The sports are: baseball, karate, roller sports, softball, sports climbing, squash, wakeboard and wushu, one of which could be added to the 2020 sports programme to be voted on by the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires in 2013. The programme can include a maximum of 28 sports.
It’s not quite martial as it has no contact, no competition in a martial sense and on the other side, it is martial gymnastics, but floor gymnastics is easily as or even more difficult than wu shu.
so it’s hard to say if it will make it to olympic status. I am doubting it.
I think it would be a good sport for the olympics. I’m always impressed by their athleticism and i’d love watching countries compete against each other.
I’m also hoping for some olympic karate, but I think that between Taekwondo, Boxing, Wrestling, and Judo it doesn’t stand much of a chance.
That is very interesting what you write about The Waywardness of Wushu. You should write a whole article on that subject. Wonder if the IWUF has been unintentionally inhibiting the uptake of Wushu…
[QUOTE=YinOrYan;1321557]That is very interesting what you write about The Waywardness of Wushu. You should write a whole article on that subject. Wonder if the IWUF has been unintentionally inhibiting the uptake of Wushu…[/QUOTE] I’ve written dozens of articles on this topic over the years. Check the back issues and the ezine archive. I daresay that no one covered this as extensively as we did in North America.
=bawang?
