Gran Turismo is set to become a bona fide Olympic sport, as it’s been selected as one of the five official partners of the inaugural Olympic Virtual Series, which is slated to take place from 13th May through 23rd June. That’s prior to the delayed Tokyo Olympics, which is currently scheduled to start in July. This will mark the first ever Olympic event for esports.
There’ll be five games featured as part of the event in total, each of which is aligned with an International Sports Federation to add authenticity. In the case of Gran Turismo, it’s the FIA, or Federation Internationale de l’Automobile to give it its full title. Fascinatingly, this is the first time a motorsport has been recognised at the Olympics.
So far, this is the full line-up:
- Baseball
- World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) - eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020 (Konami)
- Cycling
- Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) - Zwift (Zwift)
- Motorsport
- Federation Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) - Gran Turismo (Polyphony Digital)
- Rowing
- World Rowing - TBA
- Sailing
- World Sailing - Virtual Regatta (Virtual Regatta)
Details on how to qualify will be announced at a later date, but the International Olympic Committee states that each event will be run through the respective publishers’ established platforms. That means, presumably, the contest will appear within Gran Turismo Sport’s flagship Sport Mode when it unfurls next month. Have you got what it takes?
[source olympic.org, via gtplanet.net]
Comments 16
Man, this is cool. Great to see it get an Olympic moment. For reference, tug-of-war used to be in the Olympics.
That's the Olympics going down the drain. There are places Esports belongs, The Olympics is not one of them.
its weird seeing E-sports on the Olympics, but I think that this is overall a good thing. Sadly a lot of people still think that videogames are just toys.
That's pretty awesome seeing it in the Olympics! May actually get me to watch part of the Olympics that isn't basketball!
Mind Blown. Free Advertisment for GT7
Ok for everyone saying this ‘doesn’t belong in the Olympics’, here are some sports that used to be in the Olympics.
Flying a plane until it crashes into the ground. That’s it. Longest in the air wins.
Swinging clubs around like a madman. Apparently it’s a gymnastics thing.
Duelling pistol. Firing at a dummy dressed in a frock coat like you were participating in a duel.
Equestrian High Jump and Long Jump. Imagine a horse going over that high jump pole.
Motorboating. Literally driving a speedboat around a track 5 times. Took place off Southhampton so 6 of the 9 races were called off due to bad weather.
Architecture, music, painting, literature and sculpture. These went on until even after WW2.
Ballooning. Literally just flying a hot air balloon and seeing how long you can stay up and how far you can go.
Angling. Basically fishing.
Boules. That thing you play on cruise ships. Or the thing you chuck in the water in Disco Elysium.
Cannon shooting. I don’t even know what this entailed.
Fire fighting. Apparently there were separate events for volunteer and professional firefighters.
Kite flying. Not sure how this is a sport. Or how you even judge who wins.
Life saving. Like when those people carry you off a mountain because you’re being an idiot and drinking Strongbow Dark Fruit up Ben Nevis.
Pigeon racing. Literally no human participation. The pigeons deserved the medals.
Personally IRacing would be a much better fit for the Motorsport category but atleast it's not Forza.
Thats great... but WHEN is GT7 coming out!? 😭
Having video games at the olympics is an absolute joke. Nascar is more of a sport ffs...
@Link41x that's debatable. I'd argue Scalextric is more of a sport than Nascar.
@nessisonett what a way to shut everyone's mouth
Yeah, I wanna hear more about Virtual Regatta
@nessisonett best comment here really.
@solocapers
That's your opinion.
That's pretty amazing. Kaz took a bit of a gamble with GT Sport and it's focus on online racing, and when it released took quite a bit of flak for it. But the game has been going very strong and I think an affiliation with the olympic committee is pretty much a crowning achievement for him.
@tinCAT-zero mm-hmm...that's why I said "personally"
I'm not sure what you are having difficulty in understanding. I thought that was crystal clear?
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