After the Paris Olympic Games, as happened in Tokyo 2020, the community reacted, taking to computers and smartphones to show their outrage. It’s natural, as we are passionate about bodyboarding and know all its features very well. Obviously, we want to be part of it too!
Four years ago, at the Tokyo Olympics, surfing and skateboarding, for example, made their debut. In this last edition, Teahupoo would have been the perfect stage to reveal all the potential of bodyboarding.
However, there’s a long path until a sport – not just surfing – is added in the Olympics. It is a very long and exhausting process, it takes someone, an entity or even a work group to prepare all the conditions/requirements that lead to its entry.
After some research, not much, we are honest, here is what is (apparently) necessary for a sport to become Olympic:
– The first step is to have the sport recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). In the process, there must be a federation and it must have defined an anti-doping protocol. Note that being recognized as a sport is not enough.
– Then, the sport’s federation must come forward with a candidacy that must comply with the criteria of the Olympic Charter. Conditions: the sport must be practiced by men from at least 75 countries and four continents and by women from at least 40 countries and three continents, also mentioning the traditions of the sport and why it will be an added value for the Olympic Games.
Knowing that the final decision rests with the IOC, it is important to highlight that the world tour of bodyboard is organized by a company and not by a federation (in fact, just like surfing). It seems to us that it is then the International Surfing Association (ISA), which is the international federation that has bodyboarding and surfing under its wing, whose competitions are similar to an Olympic tournament (athletes represent their countries and fight for medals); that needs to fight for their inclusion.
The problem here is that the ISA has not held bodyboard competitions since 2015, when it held the last World Bodyboard Championship in Chile. This kind of event clearly lives the Olympic spirit and, most likely, could serve as a qualification for the Olympics.
The alternative could be to create an international bodyboard federation, if people really want to move forward with this process of inclusion in the Olympic Games, but it is also important to say that the sport needs to be present in more countries, has to be more popular, improve its competitions and infrastructures,
Take into consideration some sports that tried to be a part, but were rejected recently or over the years: cross-country, parkour, coastal rowing, Chinese martial arts, wakeboarding, kickboxing, motorized sports, golf, tennis and skating speed.
Please, note that being rejected does not necessarily mean the sport will not be part of the Olympic program in the future. Some of them have already been part of it, left and returned a few years later. Others never returned.
Los Angeles 2028, for example, will feature the return of cricket, lacrosse and softball (a variant of baseball). Squash and flag football (a kind of American football with less physical contact) will make their debut. Surfing and skateboarding will become a resident discipline.
Until then, bodyboarding can work on a way to be included in the games… or maybe it won’t even be necessary. It turns out, during a random consultation on the 2032 Olympic Games website, which will take place in Brisbane, Australia, bodyboarding is already one of the sports that will make an appearance in the Gold Coast waves.
Ahh, surely a silly and innocent little mistake made by the copywriter on duty (a bodyboard fan, for sure). Just in case, we just have to be patient and wait for the resolution, in 8 years. Until then!
All archive photos / MTN / Gorka Ezkurdia / Sam Venn
