At This year’s Tokyo Olympics we are going to experience a few things which we have never seen in previous Olympic Games. For the first time spectators will be missed, this is also the first time that the Olympic Games have been postponed. The positive side is that we are going to witness new events in the games, there will be newly crowned champions and more reasons to watch the games starting from 23rd July till 8th August. There will be 339 medal events in the games, which will give us more than what we asked for.

Four games will be making their debut this year along with the athletes. They are Karate, surfing,sailing and skateboarding.

Karate

With its origins in Japan, it will be a perfect time and place to make its debut in the Olympics. There are two types, Kata and Kumite. In Kata athletes will showcase their skills and moves on a virtual opponent and in Kumite two competitors of the same weight category will come face to face in a three minute battle. It will take place on Nippon Budokan which hosted the First ever World Championships in 1970. It won't be present in the next Olympics in Paris. The top athletes in men’s and women’s kata karatekas per the World Karate Federation, Damián Quintero and Sandra Sánchez both from Spain are expected to take the top honours.

In kumite, men’s medal probables include 2018 world champion Steve Da Costa of France and Italy’s Angelo Crescenzo in the under-67-kg category. Five-time world champion Rafael Aghayev of Azerbaijan under 75 kg and Turkey’s Ugur Aktas (over 75 kg) will also fight for spots on the podium. Croatia‘s Ivan Kvesic over 75 kg  finished top in the World Championships and the European Championships and has the ability to finish strong in Tokyo.

Ukraine’s Anzhelika Terliuga under 55 kg is the number one in her weight class. Serbia’s Jovana Prekovic under 61 kg and Azerbaijan’s Irina Zaretska over 61 kg, both finished on top in the 2018 world championship and are competing in Tokyo. The events start on August 4th and will go on till the 7th.

Also read: We will definitely beat our London Olympics medal count in Tokyo: Sprinter Arokia Rajiv

Surfing

Multiple Athletes will be facing waves in a 20 to 25 minute fight in each round. The bigger the waves the higher the score. It will be interesting to see many games in the water as opposed to land. This time there is surfing and the other usual games like sailing and rowing. The sport will take place at the Tsurigasaki Beach in Ichinomiya. It starts from 26th July till 29th, Australian Stephanie Gilmore has seven world titles in the women’s tour, the most recent in 2018, from the USA Carissa Moore has four world titles on the women’s side and John John Florence won consecutive world titles in 2016 and 2017.

Sport Climbing

Rock climbing will include speed climbing, lead climbing and bouldering. Athletes in speed climbing will race each other on a 15 metre wall, in bouldering athletes will have to clear as many as routes on a four meter wall and athletes don’t wear a harness but there are crash pads at the base. Lead climbing athletes will have to climb a wall  which is more than 15 metres tall with complicated rock combinations to race through. Parts of the wall are not vertical, which means in some combinations the athletes will be hanging in the air to go past it . Whichever athlete can climb the highest in six minutes wins.

The last full World Cup was in 2019 and the overall men’s winner was Tomoa Narasaki and Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret has won the last  four combined World Cup trophies from 2016 to 2019, making her the favourite overall.

Skateboarding

In this the participants will have a hollowed out court and incline for Athletes to give the audience an adrenaline rush. The next one will have rails, stairs and ramps. We can see the athletes performing flips and nose grinds. India has a few skateboard parks, but the first rural skate park has come in Rural Madhya Pradesh Janwaar village. It was built by German Activist Ulrike Reinhard and the park is free for all the children. In a few years we can see an Indian in the skateboarding event. In Olympic news it has already been approved for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Sky Brown is a 12 year old Anglo-Japanese skateboarder, who competes for Great Britain. She is the youngest professional skateboarder in the world. In Olympic news she will be the second youngest Olympian in Tokyo as Syrain Table Tennis player Hend Zaza will be the youngest to compete in the Games. The event will start from 25th july and go on till 5th August.

Interesting Fact: Tokyo is the only Asian city to host the Summer Games twice. (1964, 2020