Olympics headed to gamers sitting in mom’s basement battling each other for the gold.
Via Guns:
Moving towards being “more youthful, more urban, and more women” the International Olympic Committee approved a host of changes to the shooting sports for the upcoming Tokyo Games.
The group on Friday announced they agreed with changes proposed by the International Shooting Sports Federation, the governing body for Olympic-style shooting, that aims toward a larger goal to boost female participation while appealing to more youth.
“The fascinating new events that we approved today, together with the five new sports that were added to the Tokyo 2020 programme last year, represent a step-change in the Olympic programme,” said IOC President Thomas Bach.
In are new youth-focused and urban-based additions such as Basketball 3×3 and BMX Freestyle, on top of Sport Climbing and Skateboarding while traditional sports such as Canoe, Judo, Rowing, Sailing, Shooting and Weightlifting will become gender balanced.
The upside of the plan for the shooting sports: the Tokyo games will see new Trap Mixed Gender Team, 10m Air Rifle Mixed Gender Team, and 10m Air Pistol Mixed Gender Team events.
The downside: to make room, the IOC will remove the current Men’s Double Trap, Men’s 50m Rifle Prone, and Men’s 50m Pistol events.
Similarly, to meet a new 10,500-athlete cap on participation at the Olympic Games, the quota of shooting athletes at Tokyo 2020 will be set at 360, compared with 390 at Rio 2016, which means some teams will have to shrink.