By Samantha Lane and Rio de Janeiro
And the winner is … skateboarding!
Props, in addition, to surfing, karate, sports climbing, softball and baseball.
It's official. Two years in the works, a new chapter of summer Olympics has been ushered into the house. Well, not quite for the sporting carnival beginning in Rio on Saturday (AEST), but the Games' next landing spot - Tokyo, in 2020 – where organisers are already promising to stage the most "innovative" production ever.
Whatever. What is guaranteed in four years' time is that the first – and possibly last - gold medals will be awarded to dudes expert in manoeuvring boards through swell and on ramps in what the International Olympic Committee is hailing "the most comprehensive evolution" of Games' competition schedule.
Dreaming of Tokyo: A skateboarder competes in BOWL-A-RAMA at Bondi Beach in February.Credit: Getty Images
Steph Gilmore was instantly riding the excitement wave, "WOW!!..." began the six-time surfing world champion's tweet, posted within 15 minutes of the news breaking.
The wider audience being targeted in this exercise? Generation next. Or, to quote the preferred descriptor of the suited, and largely greying, IOC members who voted unanimously for the new sports' entry at a meeting in Brazil on Wednesday: "the young people" of the world.
These young peeps, we're told, not only have unique attention spans but unorthodox ideas about what makes interesting sport. So … give them skaters, give them surfers, give them extreme, thrill-packed action and, the theory goes, they will get jiggy with the Olympic movement in return. (Insert knuckle emoji).
While not one of the IOC's 90 members voted against introducing the five new summer games sports, some ardent squash advocates including Dick Pound made it known from the meeting floor that the small racket sport, in their view, is being neglected.
Alas, squash remains on a future Olympic sport list but clearly lacks the cool factor of the five Japan picked and lobbied for. It hardly fits the bill of fitting "perfectly with Tokyo's urban image" like skateboarding; an image 2020 bosses enthused about in the picture they were painting.
Before the voting on the new five, other concerns were raised. Monaco's representative Prince Albert asked whether bronze medals will be awarded to surfers (they will). The People's Republic of Korea representative, Mr Ung Chang, meanwhile, highlighted the flop of the men's golf entry list for Rio after that sport's Olympic re-introduction and wondered whether it might happen with baseball.
It was stated that baseball's international governing federation should seek assurances from the USA that the sport's best players will sign up to the 2020 Olympics in a way that professional male golfers have not for Brazil. It was highlighted more than once in Wednesday's proceedings that Tiger Woods was promised as a Rio entrant as part of golf's Olympic return but the big fish ultimately was not landed.
By opening itself up to non-traditional sporting settings, the IOC is re-imagining its summer Olympics following. Tokyo Games organisers spoke of the "beach festival" atmosphere they intend to create at the surfing competition.
The five new sports will create 18 new Olympic events. There are no guarantees for their Olympic inclusion beyond Tokyo (softball and baseball were dropped after 2008 after initial introductions in 1996 and 1992), but 2020 Games president Yoshiro Mori hailed with confidence a "new chapter in the history of the Olympic Games … to appeal to young people around the world and raise the excitement levels".
In these drug infected times for sport, can Tokyo's big inclusions help to restore the love and credibility of the Olympics?
The compliment of being 'dope' might be lost or misinterpreted by some IOC veterans, but if 2020 is rated that way by the breed of fan Olympic chiefs are so desperate to recruit, mission will have gone some way to being accomplished.