The Weird New Sports at Tokyo 2020

Have a Go

Jul 24 2021 • 25 mins

Much like a 40-year-old man trying to impress the friends of his new 22-year-old girlfriend, the IOC is rolling out a bunch of ‘rad’ new sports at Tokyo 2020.

But why does everything have to be new? Broadcast dollars, mainly. But it's not the IOC's most desperate cash grab: that was Paris 1900, which included highly marketable sports such as live pigeon shooting and poodle clipping.

Karate's in at Tokyo, and that makes sense, but what the actual fuck is 'Sport Climbing'? We're assume it's like the Wall on 'Gladiators', with matches refereed by Mike Whitney and John Alexander (with Mike Hammond as lead commentator.)

Meanwhile, our skateboarding team is made up of a handful of teenagers plus a 31-year-old bloke who was selected to do the bottle shop runs. Plus Joel Caine has been tapped to do the live odds reads at the Keirin event.

Introducing our special 'Spotlight on Tokyo' mini-series (14:25). Audio production from Tim ‘T-Dog’ Eldridge. Graphic design courtesy of Julia Edwards.

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