- published: 13 Oct 2015
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Olympic sports are sports contested in the Summer and Winter Olympic Games. The 2012 Summer Olympics will include 26 sports, with two additional sports due to be added to the 2016 Summer Olympics. The 2014 Winter Olympics will include 7 sports.
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 also includes five disciplines: figure skating, ice dancing, speed skating (on a traditional long track), short track speed skating and synchronized skating (the latter is non-Olympic discipline). The sport with largest number of Olympic disciplines is skiing, with six: alpine skiing, cross country skiing, ski jumping, nordic combined, snowboarding and freestyle skiing).