Olympic Sports Definitions
The term "sport" 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. Skating is a winter Olympic sport represented by the International Skating Union, and includes four disciplines: figure skating, speed skating (on a traditional long track), short track speed skating and synchronized skating (the latter is a non-Olympic discipline). The sport with the 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). The disciplines listed here are only those contested in the Olympics—gymnastics and cycling each have two non-Olympic disciplines, while wrestling has five.
It should also be noted that the IOC definition of a "discipline" may differ from that used by an international federation. For example, the IOC considers artistic gymnastics a single discipline, but the International Federation of Gymnastics classifies men's and women's artistic gymnastics as separate disciplines.
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, water polo, 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.
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