The International Olympic Committee is partnering with five international sports federations to put on virtual e-sports events ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. The exciting news for sim racers is that Gran Turismo will be one of the featured events.
The Olympic Virtual Series, as it is named, will be separate from the actual Olympics and will take place between May 13 and June 23, before the Tokyo Games, which are set to run between July 23 and August 8.
“The Olympic Virtual Series is a new, unique Olympic digital experience that aims to grow direct engagement with new audiences in the field of virtual sports,” said IOC’s president Thomas Bach. “Its conception is in line with Olympic Agenda 2020+5 and the IOC’s Digital Strategy. It encourages sports participation and promotes the Olympic values, with a special focus on youth.”
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The following sports and international sports federations will be represented.
– Fédération Internationale de l’Automobile (FIA) – Gran Turismo, Polyphony Digital
– World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) – eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020, Konami Digital Entertainment
– Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) – Zwift, Zwift inc.
– World Sailing – Virtual Regatta, Virtual Regatta SAS
– World Rowing – Open format
“A number of [international sports federations] have well established virtual sports initiatives; and thanks to the cooperation between the IOC, the IFs and the publishers, the OVS is an exciting step forward for the virtual sports world and the Olympic Movement,” said David Lappertient, chair of the IOC’s e-sports gaming liaison group.
The FIA Gran Turismo Championships were set up in 2018 and pit sim racers from around the world against one another in virtual competition. Regional champions can go onto the World Finals where winners are awarded prizes at an FIA Prize-Giving Gala ceremony.
The OVS is part of the IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020+5, which seeks to “encourage the development of virtual sports and further engage with video gaming communities.”
If you’re wondering why only traditional sports are represented here instead of popular games like League of Legends or Counter-Strike, the reason is those games’ representations of violence.
“We cannot have in the Olympic program a game which is promoting violence or discrimination,” Bach told the Associated Press in 2018. “So-called killer games. They, from our point of view, are contradictory to the Olympic values and cannot, therefore, be accepted.”
