Baseball, Softball, and Karate Are No Longer Olympic Events – Here’s Why

Four score and thousands of years ago, the sports featured in ancient Greece’s first Olympics in 776 BC, as one can imagine, looked a lot different than the athletic competitions forging today’s events. In fact, there was literally only one event for the first 13 Olympic festivals – the stadion or stade race, which was a foot race of 600 feet, according to Penn Museum. Fast forward to 2024, and 32 different sports have slotted into the program across 329 medal events for the Summer Olympics in Paris, France. From old standbys like archery and cycling to modern BMX freestyle and three-on-three basketball – thanks Ice Cube – the range of competitions is as vast as the names of the mythical Greek gods and goddesses themselves. And for the first time ever, Olympic competitions will also be held in break dancing, sport climbing, skateboarding and surfing. While those areas of athletic expertise deserve their moment in the sun, other sports have sadly fallen to wayside and will no longer be...