The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris is drawing to a close this weekend, which got Luca wondering about the times that racing both in the real and virtual worlds was involved in Olympic events. It turns out there is a fair bit of history to it.
Motorsport is not a form of sport one would typically find in the Olympics. However, every time the Games are on, there is always discussion about if motorsport should be one of its disciplines - but it may surprise many of you to know that the Olympics actually have had motor racing in one form or another before.
Plus with the IOC running esports events and committing to run a dedicated esports games in the future, sim racing has played its part too. So let's run through the times racing has appeared in an Olympic-sanctioned event.
Racing in the Olympics
Paris has held the Olympics twice prior to 2024, namely in 1924 and 1900. The first time (only the second-ever modern Games, actually) was the only time motorsport has been present as an official category. Sort of. The 1900 Games were poorly organised to put it mildly, to the extent that the records of any racing event are very difficult to find.
To demonstrate the extent of how disorganised the event was, here are all the categories for motorsport in those games:
- 2-seater car - Under 400kg - 815 km (Race A and Race B)
- 2-seater car - Over 400kg
- 4-seater car - Over 400kg
- 6-seater car - Over 400kg
- 7-seater car
- Taxi - 300km (Petrol and Electric)
- Delivery Van - 500 to 1,200kg - 300km (Petrol and Electric)
- Small Truck - Over 1,000kg - 300km
- Truck
- Fire Truck
- Paris-Toulouse-Paris (Small Car and Large Car)
- Motorcycle
You read that correctly: There were indeed competitions for taxis and fire trucks, and they even had electric car racing at the start of the 20th century, 114 years before Formula E held its first-ever race. The majority of events were won by French entrants, including Louis Renault - one of the founders of the Renault car company - who won the Paris-Toulouse-Paris race.
Unfortunately, the events have not been classified as official Olympic events and after an unofficial exhibition 'Olympic Rally' alongside the infamous 1936 games held in Germany, motor racing has been nowhere near the official Games since. But the Youth Olympic Games did have e-karting back in 2018.
Image: Mauricio V. Genta via Wikimedia Commons, available for free distribution under CC BY-SA 2.0 License.
Held in conjunction with the FIA in Argentina, the event featured teams of one boy and one girl sharing a kart, and current Formula 2 driver Franco Colapinto - who sits fifth in the F2 standings at the time of writing - was part of the winning entry. The hope was that the event would happen again in the next Youth Olympic Games, but that appears to not be the case.
For a brief period, there was hope that for the 2028 Olympic Summer Games in Los Angeles, motorsport would potentially be officially added. Unfortunately, this has failed to materialise and the FIA are set to make another bid to add motorsport to the Olympics in the future.
Interestingly, the Olympics have had motorsport feature in one of their officially sanctioned events recently -albeit virtually.
Sim Racing In The Olympics
As part of their first venture into competitive gaming, the IOC hosted the Olympic Virtual Series online as a build up event to the Tokyo games back in 2021. Then in 2023, they renamed it to the Olympic Esports Week and held it on-site in Singapore.
In that first event were exclusively platforms that depicted sports which could be replicated in the real world, such as baseball, sailing, rowing and cycling. Then, for the second edition, archery, chess, dance, shooting, taekwondo and tennis were added. But what was a part of both events? Motorsport.
For the 2021 edition, the competitors took part in three races on Gran Turismo Sport in various Toyota cars. On that occasion, it was Valerio Gallo - who would go on to take the Gran Turismo Championship's Nations Cup title - that won gold for Italy. Then in 2023 on Gran Turismo 7, it was France's Kylian Drumont who won gold for France.
Regarding the future of sim racing in Olympic Esports, the IOC have elected to run a dedicated Olympic Esports Games on a vast range of titles. The events will be held in the years between Summer and Winter games, with the first edition set for 2025. Almost certainly, motorsport will be part of that event too, most likely on Gran Turismo again.
Unfortunately as far as racing goes in an event sanctioned by the IOC, it may be a while at least or never at most for it to ever happen in the main games. Luckily though, we have the next best thing - our own Olympics.
The Racing Olympics
Many of you may be thinking "Oh I remember! A1 Grand Prix, the series that pit nations against each other in powerful open-wheel racing cars", but, although it was a cool concept, that is not the racing event that is the closest depiction of the Olympics. No, that honour belongs to the FIA Motorsport Games.
It was first held in 2019 at the Vallelunga circuit in Italy, then that was followed by a delayed second edition which took place in 2022 at Paul Ricard in France. Unlike A1GP, this event had the variety one would come to expect at the Olympics, rather than just the big open-wheel cars.
From October 23-27 2024, the third running of the event will be held in Valencia, Spain. Here is a full rundown of all the categories that are currently confirmed to be part of it:
- GT Relay
- GT Sprint
- Touring Car
- Formula 4
- Drifting
- Truck
- GT Single Make
- Rally All-Stars
- Rally2 (Rally, Gravel and Tarmac)
- Rally4 (Rally, Gravel and Tarmac)
- Rally Historic (Rally, Gravel and Tarmac)
- Crosscar (Senior and Junior)
- Karting Sprint (Mini, Junior and Senior)
- Karting Endurance
- Karting Slalom
- Auto Slalom
- Esports GT (Assetto Corsa Competizione)
- Esports F4 (iRacing)
If you are a fan of all kinds of motorsport, you might want to tune in to the FIA Motorsport Games. Talking about how motorsport is being considered to be part of the actual Olympics, you do have to wonder, which type of vehicles would be used?
Unless all drivers are as versatile as Shane van Gisbergen, the type of vehicle that would be chosen would heavily influence which competitors could take part. Motorsport is more than just touring cars, GTs or single seaters. That is why if the IOC never select motorsport to be a part of the games, it would not be too much of a loss - the various different skills in drivers would be impossible to condense into a single discipline.
We have our own Olympics and the FIA Motorsport Games truly represents the immense spectrum of racing that really does demonstrate how special it is.
Which category in the FIA Motorsport Games are you most interested in following? Tell us on Twitter at @OverTake_gg or in the comments down below!
