The sporting world is awaiting yet another Olympic year. The 2020 Summer Olympics will take place at Tokyo, the capital of Japan. The event will commence on 24th July and will go on till 9th August 2020.
Tokyo lastly conducted the Summer Olympic Games more than 50 years ago. This makes Tokyo the first Asian city to host the Summer Olympic Games twice. The Games will be held across nine areas, out of which a majority of events are scheduled to take place in two main prefectures of Tokyo.
The main two areas in Tokyo:
1. The Heritage Zone – Seven venues for nine sports will be located within this zone, located northwest of the Olympic Village. The important point to note is that some of these venues were originally constructed for the previously held 1964 Olympics. The venues are been given new and improved structure and outlook.
2. Tokyo Bay Zone – Thirteen venues for 15 sports are located in this zone, southeast of the Olympic Village. It is designed to serve as a “model for innovative urban development”. The Games will feature 339 events in 33 different sports, enclosing 50 disciplines.
New Games:
The Summer Olympics 2020 is officially known as the Games of the XXXII Olympiad. As per the new IOC (International Olympic Committee) policies, the host organizing body is allowed to augment the permanent core Olympic events. This paves way for karate, sport climbing, surfing, and skateboarding to mark their Olympic debuts. Alongside these, fifteen more events within the existing sports including Madison cycling, 3x3 basketball, and few mixed events are being introduced. One could also witness the comeback of softball and baseball, earlier removed from the summer program after 2008.
Ready, Steady, Tokyo:
“Ready, Steady, Tokyo” is the banner under which the test events are held. The test events before the Olympic and Paralympic Games are scheduled between June 2019 and June 2020. A series of 56 test events will be conducted. Several of the events are existing championships. However, a few events are newly set as test events for the Olympics. The Tokyo Organising The committee is responsible for 22 of the 56 events, while the remaining events are to be arranged by national and international organizations.
National Olympic Committees:
The number of qualified NOC as of November 11 is 136. This includes India, Pakistan, Germany, China, Syria, Australia and many other NOC. Sony and Panasonic are partnering with NHK for 8K resolution broadcasting. In the US, the Olympics will be broadcast by NBCUniversal properties. In Europe. Eurosport has broadcasting rights. Also, Telecom company NTT Docomo signed a deal with Finland’s Nokia in order to provide 5G networks in Japan in time for the Olympics.
Tickets:
Thirty percent of an estimated 7.8 million have been arranged for overseas visitors. It will be sold by “Authorized Ticket Resellers”. For the US, ticket sales will be handled by CoSport. The first round of ticketing was restricted for the residents of Japan by a lottery system for both the Olympics and Paralympics. Tickets will be sold through 40,000 shops and by mail order in Japan. The Tokyo Organising Committee will also host an online resale site at the beginning of spring. The official online resale service is available for both foreign visitors and Japanese residents. This could be a relief for those who couldn’t secure tickets for the initial rounds of ticketing.
Paralympics 2020:
The 2020 Paralympics is the 16th Summer Paralympic Games. It is scheduled to take place from August 25 to 6 September 2020 at Tokyo. This is also the second time Tokyo will host the Summer Paralympics. Replacing sailing and 7-a-side football, badminton and taekwondo will be introduced. 540 events in 22 sports will take place in the Paralympics 2020.
India at the Summer Olympics 2020
India has been participating in all the editions of the Summer Olympics since 1920. As of now, 60 Indian athletes in 5 sports have been qualified for Olympics 2020. India would aim to send over 100 athletes. Indian women hockey team will be making consecutive appearances in the Olympics for the first time.
Indian Competitors at Summer Olympics 2020
SPORT | MEN | WOMEN | TOTAL | EVENTS |
ATHLETICS | 4 | 2 | 6 | 3 |
ARCHERY | 3 | 0 | 3 | 2 |
SHOOTING | 8 | 7 | 15 | 10 |
FIELD HOCKEY | 16 | 16 | 32 | 2 |
WRESTLING | 3 | 1 | 4 | 4 |
TOTAL | 34 | 26 | 60 | 21 |
As Japan is preparing to host the Summer Olympics and Paralympics 2020, the world is also preparing to witness the magnificent event happen.
