From hopelessness to chances for medals: how sports debuting at the Olympics are developed in Russia

A year later, eight new sports will debut at the Tokyo Olympics. This is 3 × 3 basketball, baseball, softball, karate, surfing, rock climbing, skateboard and BMX freestyle (according to the IOC classification, there are only 5 new types, as it traditionally unites sports belonging to one sports federation). In some of them, the Russians will have a chance to immediately win medals, and in some there will be no opportunity to even take part. RT analyzes new types of the Olympic program and tells how they are developed in Russia.

Basketball 3 × 3

In classical basketball, the Russian national teams have not achieved significant success for a long time, but Russia will have high chances for medals in its debut in the Olympic arena streetball, or 3 × 3 basketball. Both men and women last qualification last November and became participants in the tournament, which will get only eight teams. High places in the world ranking helped to qualify for the Olympics.

Russians are still among the three best teams in the world as of April 1, when scoring was stopped due to the coronavirus. However, the results in streetball are quite unpredictable, and a lot depends on the level of players who joined the team in a particular tournament. At the last World Cup, the women's team of Russia took sixth place after the gold and silver won in previous years, and the men's team completely became 16th among 20 participants.

But at the Olympics, which is still over a year old, this will not mean anything. The alignment of forces in streetball changes very often, and any of the eight participating teams will be able to claim medals. The main thing for the Russians was to enter their number, and this goal has already been achieved.

Baseball and softball

At the Olympic Games in 2021, the return of baseball and softball (a kind of baseball) will take place. In 2008, these sports were excluded from the program, but returned due to their popularity in Japan. Matches on them, however, are planned to be held not in Tokyo itself, but in Yokohama and Fukushima.

Russian baseball players will not go to the Olympics - they could not even get to the European Championship in 2019, then to try to break into the qualifying tournament. The Russian softball team played at the last continental championship, but took only 11th place, which also put an end to the possibility of being among the six participants of the Olympic Games in Japan.

In the early 2000s, Russia managed to win medals at European championships and perform at world championships. But since then, the results of both men and women have only become worse. Naturalization may help to correct the situation in baseball - in April of this year, five Cubans and one American took Russian citizenship and will now be able to play for the national team.

Karate

Eight sets of awards will be played in karate - in kata (demonstration exercises) and kumite (individual weight categories). In each type of program, ten athletes from different countries will be able to perform. Half of the quotas are already distributed according to the world rating, but they did not get to the Russians.

The only way to qualify will be the final qualifying tournament, rescheduled for June 2021. The Russian team will have a formal chance to win all eight possible trips, but the level of this sport in the country is such that winning two quotas would be a success.

Evgeny Plakhutin claims to be one of them. Usually he performs in weight up to 60 kg, but for the selection for the Olympics he will have to fight with rivals in the category up to 67 kg. The 25-year-old athlete is the bronze medalist of the 2014 World Cup and the current European champion. In the world ranking he belongs to eighth place in the lightest weight.

The leader of the women's team is Victoria Isaeva. In 2018, while still a young athlete, she unexpectedly won the silver of the World Championship in the weight category up to 68 kg. She became the first Russian athlete to reach the finals after declaring karate an Olympic sport. Now Isaeva is 13th in the world ranking.

Surfing

Surfing was included in the program of the next two Olympics, but the chances of Russians to speak at them are extremely small - while the results in it are too low. At the moment, Russian athletes do not even play in the World Surfing League, which is an analogue of the ATP and WTA tennis tours.

At the last World Surfing Games, where the Olympic quotas were drawn, the Russians also did not succeed. Men did not make it to the first hundred, and among women, Polina Malizia, who took 65th place, showed the best result. In the team event, the team became only the 30th. There will still be a chance to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics at the next Surf Games, but there you need to occupy very high positions, which Russian athletes have not yet reached.

Rock climbing

Russians are among the best experts in the world in speed climbing. In almost every World Cup, they won medals in this discipline, and men have not left the podium since 2003. But at the Tokyo Olympics, the first sets of awards will not be played in individual types of programs, but in all-around. In climbing complexity and bouldering, Russians no longer claim high places.

At the last World Cup, none of the Russian climbers went into the first eight in the all-around to win Olympic quotas. In other qualifying competitions, Yulia Kaplina still managed to win a ticket to the Games, so that she would have a chance to compete for the Olympic medal. Some of the compatriots will still be able to join her at the end of the next European Championship, but for climbers of the Old World there is only one free space left for each gender.

It is planned that in 2024, individual medals in speed climbing will be played at the Olympic Games, and then Russian athletes will be more likely to be on the podium. But in Tokyo, Kaplina, and possibly someone else, will have a hard time competing with the all-around climbers.

Skateboard

In the global skateboard, the position of Russians is lower than in those countries where skate culture has existed for several decades. This is not to say that they are completely invisible - in the top 50 world ratings of the park and street you can find several Russian names. But at the same time, there are no one in the top twenty of these two Olympic disciplines.

Because of this, it is difficult to expect that one of the Russian skateboarders will be able to mark the debut of their sport in the Olympic program in Tokyo. In each form, only 20 athletes will perform, and most of them will be selected just according to the world rating. However, a skateboard is a very young sport, and it is possible to win medals at the World Championships even at the age of 11, as the British Sky Brown did. So it cannot even be ruled out that for the year remaining before the Olympics, one of the Russians will be able to make a breakthrough and catch up with world leaders.

BMX Freestyle

A new kind of cycling will appear at the Tokyo Olympics - BMX freestyle, in which athletes demonstrate tricks on a bicycle. The Russians are quite capable of competing for the first medals in these competitions.

Such riders as Irek Rizaev, Konstantin Andreev, Elizaveta Posadskikh already have experience of playing in the finals of the world championships and know what they need to compete with the best cycle freighters.