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The Five New Sports Coming To The 2021 Tokyo Olympics

The Five New Sports Coming To The 2021 Tokyo Olympics
USA Surfing Instagram

Team USA Olympic athlete Carissa Moore surfs with the USA flag on her surfboard

Say hello to these five exciting new sports coming to the Tokyo Olympic Games this summer!

This year, the 2021 Tokyo Olympics is introducing five new sports to the global games. Check out everything you need to know about them here!


Watch as your favorite sports come to Tokyo. For the first-time ever, these fan-favorite sports are bringing in athletes from Team USA and around the world to compete in the Olympic Games.

Here's the full list of these new sports:

1. Surfing

Surf's up! Team USA is coming to catch some waves for the Tokyo Olympic Games.

60 miles east of Tokyo is a small seaside town called Ichinomiya where surfers will compete on Tsurigasaki Beach.

Nationally recognized surfers Caroline Marks, Kolohe Andino, John John Florence and Carissa Moore have been chosen to represent Team USA in the Olympic Surfing debut.

The multi-day event will have a series of heats in which the surfers will alternate riding waves against one another. Then, the top finishers with the best combined scores will advance to one-on-one rounds for those Olympic medals.

2. Karate

The Nippon Budokan is an indoor arena known as the spiritual home of Japanese martial arts, and will also be the home for the Karate tournaments this summer.

There will be two modalities in which 80 competitors will compete in: the kumite and the kata. The kumite is a a sparring form in which the athletes try to outscore their opponents, while the kata is an individual performance in which the athlete is judged on technical ability.

Karate will not be included as a sport for the 2024 Olympics in Paris, which means the stakes are higher than ever for these athletes competing in Tokyo this summer.

3. 3x3 Basketball

Bring on the ball! This year, 3 on 3 basketball is coming to Tokyo.

The basketball games will be played on a half court and are set to end either after a team reaches a score of 21 points or after 10 minutes (whichever comes first).

Team USA is full of passionate players waiting for their chance to play the half-court hoops, including WNBA stars Allisha Gray, Stefanie Dolson, Jackie Young, and more.

4. Skate-boarding

Let's roll! The first-ever skateboarding Olympics will be held at Tokyo's newly built Ariake Urban Sports Park.

Skateboarders will compete in street and park competitions. Using a skateboarding course that's built to look like a city, street skaters can use the objects such as stairs, handrails, benches, curbs, and more while competing. Judges will then score the athletes based on their performances in categories such as difficulty, speed, originality, and more.

12-time X Games champion Nyjah Huston is one of the top athletes headlining Team USA's Skateboarding Team.

5. Sport Climbing

Keep looking up! Professional climbers Kyra Condie, Brooke Raboutou, Nathaniel Coleman, and Colin Duffy will be competing in the sport's debut in Tokyo this summer.

Olympic sport climbing will consist of three main disciplines: speed-climbing, bouldering, and lead-climbing.

Team USA is starting off strong as the U.S. was one of just three nations to qualify the maximum number of climbers possible.

You can watch these exciting sports make their Olympic debuts at the 2021 Tokyo Olympic Games on NBC.

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Maria Cieslarczyk