The summer Olympics were skipped in 2020 due to Covid-19.  The Olympics are happening in 2021 since the Covid vaccine has been released, and we have learned more about the virus and become more prepared.  With the vaccine made, it makes sporting events safer with the potential for people to be vaccinated. The summer Olympics will be held in Tokyo, Japan for the first time since 1964.       

The Summer Olympics 2020 is going to be very different from all the other Olympics because of COVID-19. They are not only cutting back on the amount of spectators/visitors but countries are also backing out of the event. Rule 1 is that they are banning singing, and chanting during events for players, and athletes must wear masks at all times. The only exception to this rule is when players are eating, sleeping or outdoors. 

 All participants; federal officials and staff, are not allowed to use public transportation during the Olympics.Social distancing will be strongly enforced with boxes, and clear barricades. Tokyo is supplying the event with enough hand sanitizer for the 16 days that the Summer Olympics will occur, but it is expected that it could go longer than 16 days because of the delays caused by COVID-19 protocols.  Although a lot of the summer Olympics will be the same like, same sports, countries etc, officials acknowledge that this year’s Olympics will be much different from any other they have attended before. 

There are many changes this year in the Tokyo Olympics because of this crazy year. One of the changes is that there are 5 new sports added to the Olympics This year. This year the 5 new sports including the sport of climbing, surfing, skateboarding, karate and softball/baseball. Due to the delay in of the games many of the world champions in summer sports originally scheduled for 2021 have been postponed, as the Olympic Games competition or tournament takes pride of place on the calendar

The sport climbing has three different types including speed climbing, bouldering and lead climbing. In speed climbing there will be two athletes facing up a 15m wall. Bouldering the climbers scale a number of routes on a 4cm wall within a certain amount of time. Without ropes or safety nets. The routes are like problems and whoever solves the most problems with the lowest number of tries wins. 

In lead climbing, competitors climb as high as they can up a 15m wall within a 6 min time period. Surfing also makes an olympic debut this year with the real waves coming from Shidashita beach. 20 men and 20 women will compete in different competitions, 4 athletes will compete at a time and the 2 that win will move on to the next round.. 

 Skateboarding is going into the Tokyo Olympics with two events. In the street event the athletes will perform individually and show off their skills or tricks on stairs, handrails, curbs, benches, walls and slopes. In the park event competitors climb the curves at speed and perform mid-air tricks. They are scored on the difficulty, originality and execution of their tricks. The next new sport in the Summer Olympics is softball and baseball. 

For baseball there are two teams of nine players and they play nine innings. Softball is the same as baseball with the length of the game, how many players and how the game is played. The only difference is a shorter distance between pitcher and batter, the ball is larger and less dense, and the bat is shorter. The pitching is also a little different.

Karate also has two different types, kata, a series of movements practiced alone targeting a virtual opponent and Kumite, where two opponents face each other and compete on a matted area measuring 8m x 8m. Other than just the 5 new sports the summer Olympics will also have 46 total sports. The USA team is expected to consist of 600 athletes, a few athletes that are likely to compete are, Simona Biles (Gymnastics), Brady Ellison (Archery), Maggie Steffens (Water Polo), Serena Williams (Tennis), Hustin Gatlin, Noah Lyles, and more. Overall this will be a different but amazing summer Olympics with great sports including 5 new ones, amazing athletes and some great teams.

There are many sports that will be featured in the Summer Olympics, so The Bolt conducted a survey for what sports people want to see most this year. The result of this survey is the following: 30.1% said beach Volleyball, 21.9% said tennis, 19.2% said gymnastics, 15.1% said golf, and 13.7% said they want to see Swimming. For all the new sports, we also asked what new sports people are most excited to see. Those results were: 28.8% said surfing, 19.2% said skateboarding, 19.2% said karate, 16.4% said baseball/softball, and 16.4% said sport climbing. 

The next question asked is if they think it is smart or not for there to be no foreign visitors allowed to attend the Olympics. For this question, 83.6% said yes while 16.4% said no.There are so many great athletes attending the Olympics this year, so we decided to ask people who out of some of the most known athletes they know do they are most excited to watch. The results were as follows: 37.5% said they are most interested in Simone Biles for gymnastics, 27.8% said Serena Williams for tennis, 18.1% said Chloe Dygert for cycling, and 16.7% said Haley Anderson for swimming.

 For the final question, we asked if people think it is safe for the  Summer Olympics to be happening during the pandemic, and 66.2% said that, yes It is safe for the Summer Olympics to be going on during COVID-19 while 33.8% said no, that it is not safe. In the end, people are most interested in Beach Volleyball, and people least want to see Swimming. For new sports, people want to see surfing the most and it’s a tie for least with baseball/softball and sport climbing. People want to see Simone Biles the most and want to see Haley Anderson the least. Most people think that it is safe for the Olympics to happen during the pandemic, and think it is smart for there not to be foreign visitors.