LAUSANNE: Break­dancing was among four sports given a provisional green light for inclusion in the Paris 2024 Games by the International Olympic Committee on Wednesday, IOC President Thomas Bach said.

The Paris 2024 organising committee in February proposed surfing, skateboarding and sport climbing as well as breakdancing for inclusion in the Games.

“We decided to recommend the four sports [for ratification] to the IOC session in June in Lausanne,” Bach told a news conference. “It is a provisional inclusion because the final decision should only be taken at the end of 2020.”

Surfing, climbing and skateboarding will be part of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and their performance as new sports there will be key for their final inclusion in Paris.

“There will be a meeting in November 2020 and a board meeting in December where the final decision should be taken. In the meantime there is a monitoring programme... to see how they perform, to look at governance, integrity of competitions, refereeing and judging system,” Bach said.

The Paris Games organisers have said they want to deliver a programme that will be “in keeping with the times and inspire new audiences and attract young people ... and which can be played anywhere and anytime in urban and other environments.”

Under new IOC rules first introduced for the Tokyo Games, Olympic host cities can hand-pick sports and propose them for inclusion in those Games if they are popular in that country and add to the Games’ appeal.

The IOC is eager to refresh the Games’ sports programme to remain relevant to sponsors, broadcasters and fans.

Also on Wednesday, the IOC board agreed to continue helping North and South Korean athletes and officials work together despite diplomatic setbacks between the neighboring governments in recent days.

Joint Korean teams are being prepared in four sports to try to qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and a co-hosting bid for the 2032 Summer Games is a possible aim.

With those 2032 Olympics and the 2030 Winter Games in mind, a panel has been asked to look at ways of making an often expensive and politically unpopular candidate process “more flexible and more targeted.” “The IOC may approach a city or a region and tell them, ‘Listen, isn’t it not a time for you now?’” Bach said after the second of three days of board meetings.

The IOC announced that a working group will be created to to examine possible reforms to the bidding process for future Winter Olympics.

“We have decided to set up a working group composed of five people representing the five continents and presided over by Australia’s John Coates,” said Bach. “We have a momentum with many cities and National Olympic Committees who are thinking of candidatures for the 2032 Olympics.”

Although there are a number of nations interested in hosting the 2032 Summer Games, the bidding for the rights to the 2026 winter edition suffered a series of pullouts, notably Sion in Switzerland and Calgary in Canada due to the absence of popular support. Only Stockholm and Milan/Cortina d’Ampezzo are still in the race with the successful host to be named in June.

Coates, who presided over the working group appointed for the awarding of the 2024 and 2028 Summer Olympics in Paris and Los Angeles respectively, will be joined by China’s Li Lingwei, Lydia Nsekera of Burundi, Slovakia’s Danka Bartekova and Gerardo Werthein from Argentina.

Bach also appealed Wednesday for “severe” sanctions to be imposed against those athletes implicated in the doping scandal which blighted the recent world nordic skiing championships at Seefeld in Austria.

Police raids targeted a suspected doping network at the February event, with nine arrests made — including five athletes. Austrian and German police carried out a series of raids in both countries.

“We hope that all this will be clarified, that everything will be put on the table and that those responsible, the entourage of these athletes and the doctors will be punished severely and quickly,” said Bach.

“I hope it will not drag on, that justice will really set an example, that there will be heavy penalties that will act as a deterrent.”

The IOC was confronted with a vast doping scandal at the Winter Olympics in Sochi in 2014, which led to the suspension of Russia at the 2018 Olympics.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2019