The biggest multi-sport event in the world has returned, this time in Tokyo, Japan. The first-ever Olympic games happened in Athens, Greece in 776 BC with only one event – a 200-yard footrace. But in the first Modern Olympics in 1896, there were a total of nine sports consisting of 43 events. Since then, the number of sports and events has only increased. The latest Tokyo 2020 edition features 33 sports and 339 events which means that there will be 18 events and 474 athletes more than any previous Olympic games. Here is the list of all sports in Olympics:
Complete list of sports in Olympics
| Sl. no | Sport |
| 1 | Aquatics |
| 2 | Archery |
| 3 | Athletics |
| 4 | Badminton |
| 5 | Baseball/Softball |
| 6 | Basketball |
| 7 | Boxing |
| 8 | Canoeing |
| 9 | Cycling |
| 10 | Equestrian |
| 11 | Fencing |
| 12 | Field hockey |
| 13 | Football |
| 14 | Golf |
| 15 | Gymnastics |
| 16 | Handball |
| 17 | Judo |
| 18 | Karate |
| 19 | Pentathlon |
| 20 | Rowing |
| 21 | Rugby |
| 22 | Sailing |
| 23 | Shooting |
| 24 | Skateboarding |
| 25 | Sport climbing |
| 26 | Surfing |
| 27 | Table tennis |
| 28 | Taekwondo |
| 29 | Tennis |
| 30 | Triathlon |
| 31 | Volleyball |
| 32 | Weightlifting |
| 33 | Wrestling |
5 new sports in Tokyo Olympics 2020
| Sl. No | Sports |
| 1, | Baseball/Softball |
| 2. | Karate |
| 3. | Skateboarding |
| 4. | Surfing |
| 5. | Sport climbing |
Sports in Olympics: Aquatics
Olympic Games: Aquatics events in Tokyo 2020 can be broadly categorized into two: Swimming and Diving. In swimming, there are individual events like freestyle, butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and medley ranging through 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1500 meters for both men and women. Team events are freestyle and medley relays, men’s, women’s, and mixed. Diving also has two different categories for both men and women, 3m springboard and 10m platform.
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Athletes to watch out for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Simone Manuel, Caeleb Dressel, Tom Daley, Yang Jian
Sports in Olympics: Archery
Comes in Men’s individual and team, Women’s individual and team, and mixed categories.
Athletes to watch out for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Brady Ellison, Deepika Kumari, Atanu Das, Kim Woo-Jin
Sports in Olympics: Athletics
This is the list of all events in athletics:
- Sprint (100, 200, 400, 800 meters)
- Long-running (1500, 10000m for men and 5000m for women)
- Hurdles (110, 400 meters)
- Walking (20km, 50km only for men)
- 3000m Steeplechase
- Decathlon for men
- Heptathlon for women
- Marathon
- Long jump
- High jump
- Discus throw
- Shot put
- Hammer throw
- Triple jump
- Javelin throw
- Pole Vault
- Relay (4*100m and 4*400m)
Athletes to watch out for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Allyson Felix, Neeraj Chopra, Marcell Jacobs, Dina-Asher Smith, Rai Benjamin, Noah Lyles.
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Sports in Olympics: Badminton
Singles, Doubles, and Mixed doubles.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: PV Sindhu, Tai Tzu-Ying, Anders Antonsen, Kento Momota
Sports in Olympics: Baseball
Olympic Games: Only six teams compete in the baseball tournament in Tokyo 2020. They are Israel, Mexico, Dominican Republic, USA, Republic of Korea, and Japan.
Favorites: USA and Japan
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Sports in Olympics: Basketball
Olympic Games: A total of 12 teams compete in each Men’s and Women’s basketball tournament with three groups of 4 teams playing to qualify to knockouts.
Favorites: US and China in Women’s and France and US in Men’s.
Sports in Olympics: Boxing
Olympic Games: For women’s boxing, there are five categories depending on the weight range – featherweight, flyweight, lightweight, middleweight, and welterweight. Men have three extra categories apart from these – Light heavyweight, heavyweight, and super heavyweight.
Players to watch in Tokyo Olympics 2020: MC Mary Kom, Julio Cesar La Cruz, Eumir Marcial, Sathish Kumar.
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Sports in Olympics: Canoeing
Olympic Games: There are two major distinctions: Canoe Slalom and Canoe Sprint. Both have C events which are Canoeing and K events which are Kayaking. Canoe Slalom is an individual event while Canoe Sprint has both individual and team events. Moreover, team events are split into two – 2-a-team and 4-a-team categories. Events also differ in distance from 200m to 500m to 1000m.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Jessica Fox, Saeid Fazioula, Dong Zhang.
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Sports in Olympics: Cycling
Olympic Games: Men’s and Women’s cycling has road cycling events and individual time trial events.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Wout Van Aert, Filippo Ganna, Remco Evenepoel
Sports in Olympics: Equestrian
Comes in three different events namely dressage, eventing, and jumping in both individual and team categories.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Michael Jung, Charlotte Dujardin, Mathilda Karlsson.
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Sports in Olympics: Fencing
Foil, Sabre, and Epee are the three fencing events in which men and women participate individually and in teams.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: C.A Bhavani Devi, Daniele Garozzo, Race Imboden
Sports in Olympics: Field Hockey
All Olympic sports: One of the oldest team sports to feature in the Olympics. Men and Women compete in two 6 teamed pools to qualify for the quarter-finals.
Favorites: India, Australia, Belgium in Men’s and Australia, Netherlands, Germany in Women’s.
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Sports in Olympics: Football
All Olympic sports: 12 teams in Women’s football divided into three groups while 16 teams are divided into four groups in Men’s football. Most of the players should be under the age of 23.
Favorites: Men’s – Spain, Japan, and Korea, Women’s – the USA, Canada, and Australia
Sports in Olympics: Golf
All Olympic sports: It’s an individual competition where players contest in four rounds to determine the winners.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Park In-Bee, Nelly Korda, Collin Morikawa.
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Sports in Olympics: Gymnastics
These are the events in gymnastics:
- Artistic individual
- Artistic team
- Floor
- Vault
- Horizontal bars (Men’s)
- Parallel bars (Men’s)
- Pommel horse (Men’s)
- Rings (Men’s)
- Balance beam (Women’s)
- Uneven bars (Women’s)
Gymnasts to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Simone Biles, Nina Derwael, Kohei Uchimura, Nikita Nagornyy.
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Sports in Olympics: Handball
All Olympic sports: 12 teams are split into two groups for both Men’s and Women’s handball tournaments.
Favorites: Denmark and Norway in Men’s and Norway in Women’s.
Sports in Olympics: Judo
Judo events are categorized by weight classification. Men’s starting from 60 kg to 100+ kg are divided into seven different events. Women’s seven categories range between 48 and 78+ kg. There is also one mixed team event.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Naohisa Takato, Hifumi Abe, Jorge Fonesca.
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Sports in Olympics: Karate
All Olympic sports: Kata and Kumite are the two events where Kumite is again divided into three depending on the weight limit. For men, it’s 67 kg, 75 kg, and 75+ and for women, it’s 55 kg, 61 kg, and 61+.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Sandra Sanchez, Kiyou Shimizu, Damian Quintero, Ryo Kiyuna
Sports in Olympics: Pentathlon
All Olympic sports: Modern pentathlon is a fusion of five individual events; cross-country run, freestyle swimming, epee fencing, pistol shooting, and show jumping. A total of 36 athletes will participate in men’s and women’s pentathlon each.
Players to watch for in Tokyo in Olympics: Kate French, Valentin Prades, Anastasiya Prokopenko.
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Rowing
Rowing has seven events each for men and women. They are Coxless four, Coxless pair, Double sculls, Men’s and Women’s eight, Lightweight double sculls, Quadruple sculls, Single sculls.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics: Paul O’ Donovan, Fintan McCarthy, Oliver Zeidler
Rugby
Both Men’s and Women’s rugby tournament consists of 12 teams split into 3 equal groups for qualification to the knockout round.
Favorites: New Zealand and Fiji for both men’s and women’s tournament
Sailing
This is the list of Sailing events in Tokyo Olympics 2020:
- Men’s 470
- Women’s 470
- Men’s RS: X
- Women’s RS: X
- 49er
- Finn
- 49er FX
- Laser
- Laser Radial
- Nacra 17
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Santiago Lange, Cecilia Carranza, Dorian Van Rijsselberghe.
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Shooting
There are six individual events for men and women each along with three team events.
Individual events: 10m air pistol, 10m air rifle, 25m rapid fire pistol, 50m rifle three positions, skeet, trap.
Team events: Mixed 10m air pistol, Mixed 10m air rifle, Mixed team trap
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Manu Bhaker, Jin-Jong Oh, Olena Kostevych
Skateboarding
One of the newest entries in Olympics year, skateboarding has only two events, street, and park.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Nyjah Huston, Filipe Gustavo, Leticia Bufoni, Rayssa Leal
Sport climbing
Lead, Speed, and Bouldering are the three disciplines of sport climbing. It’s also featuring in the Olympics for the first time.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Adam Ondra, Tomoa Narasaki, Brooke Raboutou
Surfing
The surfing tournament contains 5 heats of three competitors each followed by head-to-head knockout stages.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Italo Ferreira, Stephanie Gilmore, Sally Fitzgibbons, Carissa Moore
Table Tennis
Just like tennis, singles, doubles, and mixed doubles are the events in table tennis.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Fan Zhendong, Manika Batra, Tomokazu Harimoto
Taekwondo
All combat sports have categories determined upon body weight and Taekwondo is no different. Men and women have 4 different events depending upon their body weight.
Player to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Dae Hoon Lee, Ahmad Abu Ghaush, Shuai Zhao
Tennis
Singles, Doubles, and mixed doubles are classic tennis events. It is one of the most awaited events because of world-class players featuring in the tournament.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Naomi Osaka, Novak Djokovic, Alexander Zverev, Belinda Bencic
Triathlon
Triathlon is a mix of running, swimming, and cycling. There are individual events and a mixed relay events.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Morgan Pearson, Vincent Luis, Mario Mola, Brit Alex Yee
Volleyball
Two pools of 6 teams start the tournament. After 4 from each group qualifies, the knockout stages will happen.
Favorites: USA, Serbia, Brazil
Weightlifting
Ranging from 61 kg to 109+ kg for men and 49 kg to 87+ kg for women, there will be seven categories in the weightlifting competition.
Players to watch for in Tokyo Olympics 2020: Akbar Djuraev, Mirabai Chanu, Shi Zhiyong
Wrestling
Men’s wrestling has two different types – Greco-Roman and freestyle wrestling while women’s wrestling has only the freestyle event. Events are separated on the basis of bodyweight categories.
Players to watch for in Tokyo 2020: Taha Agkul, Risako Kawai, Deepak Punia, Anshu Malik
India is competing in 18 of these sports and it’s the highest number of sports India has ever participated in any Olympic games. Let’s cheer for our nation and all our athletes as they go for glory!
