Surfing
Surfing
“As I watched that native penetrate the long waves off Matavai Bay in a small canoe, I could not help concluding that this man felt the most supreme pleasure while he was driven on so fast and so smoothly by the sea" . So wrote James Cook who arrived in Tahiti in 1777, unconsciously witnessing the ancient origins of surfing in Polynesian culture. In the early 19th century, surfing landed from Hawaii first on the coasts of the United States and then in Australia and Europe. With the Tokyo 2020 Games, it becomes for the first time an Olympic discipline in its most popular specialty, the shortboard, which involves the use of long-sized boards characterized by a sharp end that allows quick maneuvers and changes of direction.
baseball and softball
baseball and softball
The origins of baseball are lost in myths and urban legends: it is likely that the sport developed as an evolution of the older cricket, imported by the British into the American colonies in the mid-18th century. What is certain is that baseball, as we know it today, was officially born in 1845, when the American Alexander J. Cartwright published the first set of rules. It is easier instead to trace the origins of softball, today an all-female discipline: in 1887 the reporter George Hancock invented indoor baseball which began to be played outdoor the following year. After several appearances at the Games, the two sports return to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, with Japan, the first in history, to win gold in both disciplines. Played on the "diamond" or on a grass pitch, by young promises or established professionals, this sport continues to break down the boundaries of what is impossible only in appearance.
karate
karate
Born in ancient times among the Buddhist monks of the island of Okinawa and handed down for a long time within a small circle of practitioners, karate has spread outside of Japan since the Second World War and is today a popular discipline, practiced all over the world. Just in Japan, at the Tokyo 2020 Games, it made its debut as an Olympic sport in two specialties: kumite, a fighting discipline, and kata, demonstration of a sequence of movements performed with extreme speed and precision targeting a virtual opponent. Out of the 36 countries represented at the Games, 20 nations went home with at least one medal, highlighting the universality of the sport.
Sport climbing
Sport climbing
If the will to explore the world has always pushed the man to aim high to conquer the highest peaks of the mountains, sport climbing was born as a real discipline only in 1985, in Italy. In Tokyo 2020 it makes its Olympic debut with three different specialties: the lead which, inspired by climbing in a natural environment, rewards the athlete who reaches the highest point on a fifteen-meter wall; the boulder, which takes place on lower walls, of about two meters, and which includes few but decisive holds; the most recent speed, a climbing that sees two athletes compete in speed at the same time.
Skateboarding
Skateboarding
The California coast is the birthplace of skateboarding, born in the early ‘50s from the idea of a group of surfers who, tired to wait for the right swell to train, turned to the use of wooden boards with wheels. In Tokyo 2020 there are two recognized disciplines: the street, in which acrobatics of varying difficulty in speed and height are performed on a “street-like” course, and the park, which takes place on a hollowed-out course with a series of complicated curves and steep surfaces, reminiscent of the empty swimming pools of Venice Beach used by the first skaters. Whether on an adapted board or in a wheelchair, skateboarding never ceases to amaze with its acrobatic evolutions and increasingly spectacular tricks!
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