In the first major step towards the sport's second inclusion in the world's largest multi-sport event, surfing was officially invited today to be part of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the organizing committee has just announced in a statement released by AFP.

Tony Estanguet, head of the organizing committee, said that the inclusion of these four sports is in response to the fact that they are “more urban.” “From the beginning we wanted to offer games that have an impact and the element of surprise, which is why we have chosen to present the IOC with these four sports, tailored for youth and completely in line with our vision,” he added.

ISA President Fernando Aguerre celebrated today's victory and told the Olympic media outlet, Insidethegames that it was another “milestone in the Olympic wave of surfing.”

"We are delighted and honoured that Paris has included surfing in its list of proposed sports for the 2024 Games. This announcement brings us closer to our long-term goal of inclusion," he added.

The decision in Paris left out baseball, softball and karate, the other two new sports that will be in Tokyo 2020, as well as squash, snooker and chess, all disciplines that had made public campaigns to be in Paris.

According to what the event organisers informed insidethegames, there will be 248 athletes in these four sports, and based on what the different international federations had proposed: Breakdancing will occupy 32 places, Skateboarding 96, climbing 72, which goes hand in hand with an increase to 24 men and 24 women for the surfing event (an increase of four per gender), ruling out the possibility of adding a discipline such as SUP or Longboard, unless it is for eight participants.

The big news of the day for the mass media and sports portals was that it is very likely that breakdancing, which debuted at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, will be included in the Olympics under the auspices of the World Dance Sport Federation. This inclusion brought about the same disputes that occurred with skateboarding after a similar announcement was made.

It is now in doubt whether the 2024 Olympic surfing tournament will be held in the sea or in wave pools. Just last week, In an interview With Sports Media, the WSL CEO said that she will build two pools in Paris, unlike all the other cities mentioned where she will install one.

The path of this invitation will now be discussed by the Olympic Committee's Programme Commission before being dealt with by the Executive Board between 26 and 28 March.

The June IOC session will then give provisional approval before further additions are officially confirmed in December 2020.

What this novelty brings is a very strong nod to Los Angeles 2028, the most populous city in California, a state that last year declared surfing as its official sport. It would be very difficult with this to break the Olympic continuity in the state of the official sport.