Category:Former Olympic sports

Olympic sports are sports contested in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. The 2012 Summer Olympics will include 26 sports, with two additional sports due to be added to the 2016 Summer Olympics. The 2014 Winter Olympics will include 7 sports.[1]

Olympic sports definitions

The term "athletics" in Olympic terminology refers to all the events that are sanctioned by one International Sport Federation, a definition that may be different from the common meaning of the word sport. One sport, by Olympic definition, may be divided into several disciplines, which are often regarded as separate sports in common language.

For example: Aquatics is a Summer Olympic sport that includes five disciplines: Swimming, synchronized swimming, diving, water polo and open water swimming, since all these disciplines are governed at international level by the International Swimming Federation.[1] Skating is a Winter Olympic sport represented by the International Skating Union, and also includes five disciplines: figure skating, ice dancing, speed skating (on a traditional long track), short track speed skating and synchronized skating (the latter is non-Olympic discipline)[1]. The sport with largest number of Olympic disciplines is Skiing, with six: Alpine Skiing, Cross country skiing, Ski Jumping, Nordic combined, Snowboarding and Freestyle skiing). Other notable multi-discipline sports are gymnastics (artistic, rhythmic and trampoline), cycling (road, track, mountain and BMX), volleyball (indoors and beach), wrestling (freestyle and greco-roman), canoeing (flatwater and slalom) and bobsleigh (includes skeleton). On some occasions, notably in the case of snowboarding, the IOC agreed to add sports which previously had a separate International Federation to the Olympics on condition that they dissolve their governing body and instead affiliate with an existing Olympic sport federation, therefore not increasing the number of Olympic sports.

An event, by IOC definition, is a competition that leads to the award of Medals. Therefore, the sport of aquatics includes a total of 46 Olympic events, of which 32 are in the discipline of swimming, eight in diving, and two each in synchronized swimming, diving and open water swimming. The number of events per sport ranges from a minimum of two (until 2008 there were sports with only one event) to a maximum of 47 in Athletics, which despite its large number of events and its diversity is not divided into disciplines.