The organizing committee for the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo has recommended the addition of five new sports to its programs, including sport climbing. The International Federation of Sport Climbing noted that the number of participants in the sport has grown from 25 million to an estimated 35 million in the past two years, in line with the development of urban action sports, and that half of them are under 25 years of age. The number of climbing gyms has grown rapidly in Japan, which has some 500,000 climbers. The other additional sports admitted by the committee for the Tokyo Games are baseball/softball, surfing, skateboarding and karate. Applications made by the representatives of three other sports - bowling, squash and wushu - were not accepted. The committee's recommendations will be submitted to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for its final decision in Rio de Janeiro in August 2016.

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