The fight for new Olympic sports

 Which of these sports sounds the most Olympic to you? American football with a frisbee? Table tennis with a football? Or good old dodgeball? Authorities behind the games, hoping to spur youth interest, are always looking for new disciplines. But the road to Olympic glory is harder than it seems.

Flying discs & overhead kicks - the next Olympic sports?

“Change or be changed.”

After succeeding Jacques Rogge as IOC president in 2013, Thomas Bach was forthright in his assessment of what the Olympic Games needed to do to stay relevant. For all that London 2012 reached a record-breaking global audience of 3.6 billion, the IOC had concerns. Interest from the 18-24 demographic was waning. It was a trend that could not be ignored. In December 2014, Bach launched his Agenda 2020, outlining 40 proposed reforms for the Games. “In our world - changing faster than ever - the success of yesterday means nothing for today,” warned the president at the 127th IOC Session in Monaco. “If we do not drive these changes ourselves, others will drive us to them. We want to be the leaders of change, not the object of change.” Read more...

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