The final decision rests with the IOC and the vote will be taken at the full session in Rio next year. The successful governing body or bodies can count on increased funding, expect more media coverage and attract greater sponsorship, all because a sport has that all important Olympic brand.

Baseball and softball took the drastic step of merging their organisations when both were cut from the programme after the 2008 Beijing Games. They seem a certainty for a 2020 return as Japanese crowds will surely flock to watch both sports.

For skateboarding, surfing and karate it would mean an Olympic debut. In this format it would also be a first for sport climbing, although during the inter war years the IOC gave a gold medal for “alpinism”. In 1932 they gave the prize to the German brothers Franz and Toni Schmid. The Olympic Review called it a “remarkable exploit in climbing the Matterhorn on the North Side.” Sadly only Franz lived to receive the medal, his brother perished in a climbing accident.

The injection of new events is all part of the Agenda 2020 plan “move from a sport-based to an event based programme.” and the one off appearances hark back to the days when Organising Committees could nominate demonstration sports.

No official Olympic medals were awarded but it gave potential sports a stage to put their case. Among those to reap the benefit were badminton and taekwondo, which later achieved full medal status.

Others such as gliding were included as a demonstration at the 1936 Games in Berlin but never made it to the full medal programme. Things might have been different had it not been for the war. Gliding was to have been on the official schedule for the 1940 Games in Helsinki. The Games never took place.

When peace returned, the London Organising Committee for the 1948 Games received requests for inclusion from women’s hockey, baseball and more unusually model yachting and folk dancing. None of these were included in the schedule but on the rest day of the athletics, patrons at Wembley Stadium were treated to an exhibition of men’s lacrosse by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute from New York who played against an All England team.

In 1952, the Finns briefly considered demonstrating rugby but after a lukewarm response from the authorities in other countries, pesapallo - Finnish baseball - took centre stage in Helsinki. Australian Rules football was included in Melbourne four years later. Barcelona took the opportunity to show off pelota at the 1992 Games, but demonstrations and exhibition sports were discontinued after that.

The five sports up for consideration all have IOC recognition. There is even an “Association for IOC Recognised International Sports Federations”. Of course it has its own acronym (ARISF).

Founded in the early 1980s, it includes members such as flying disc sports, including ultimate frisbee. Lifesaving is also in there, so too korfball, a cross between netball and basketball which is played by mixed teams. Many of these sports compete at the World Games, which will enjoy even closer connections with the Olympics under Agenda 2020.

But long before the explosion of international sporting organisations and federations, officials were tinkering with the Olympic programme.

The 1896 Olympics in Athens, known formally as the first Olympiad of the Modern era, was arranged in less than two years. Even so, a bulletin in 1895 outlined an impressive variety of sports which were being considered. Athletics included a long distance foot-race over 48 kilometres called a “marathon“. Other sports included gymnastics which included rope climbing. Cycling, fencing, wrestling, shooting, swimming have been part of the Games ever since and lawn tennis was also one of the original sports..

Organisers also hoped to include sailing, rowing, football and cricket. For various reasons none of these ultimately took place at the Athens Games.

Boxing was not included, because “the majority of the committee did not consider it sufficiently civilised.". Those in charge of future Games did not have the same reservations although boxing was not included in 1912 because it was frowned upon in Sweden. Professional boxing in that country was later banned.

The Games grew quickly. By the London Games of 1908, the programme was already spread over six months. When they were over, the organisers set down what they felt should constitute the Games in future.

“The programme should contemplate, if we are right, a well considered list of first-rate contests, in some of which every competing nation could enter its representatives, and in all of which at least six different nations - in the Olympic sense of the word “nation” - were well known to be able to send representatives.”

Not all the contests in 1908 could quite be considered “first rate” but they could not be faulted for variety. The whole thing began in April with rackets and jeu de paume, similar to real tennis, at Queen’s Club in West London and finished with hockey, rugby and football and even bicycle polo. There was even a motor boating event to be held on Southampton Water. Unfortunately all did not go to plan.

“With constant downpours of rain, and the heavy sea running made racing an enterprise of some considerable risk. That any competitors started at all was a strong testimony to their pluck and determination,” said the official report.

It was the first and only time that such a sport was seen on the programme. Later the Olympic Charter included a rule that “Sports depending on mechanical propulsion are not acceptable.”

The Tug of War International Federation is now recognized in its own right by the IOC but during its Olympic heyday it was considered part of the athletics fraternity. The regulations were framed by the Amateur Athletic Association.

In 1908, a team of policemen from the City of London won gold but their victory proved controversial.

“The English policemen wore their ordinary duty boots, as it is their invariable custom to pull in these contests in such boots which have become too shabby for street duty.”said the official report. When they heard about the protest, the London ‘Bobbies ‘ offered to compete in their socks.

In the early years , team sports were the traditional Anglo-Saxon games such as football, rugby union and hockey but things changed between the wars.

Basketball has become one of the hottest tickets for any Olympic Games, especially after the admission of professional players in the nineties particularly those from the NBA. Yet although the sport had been played since 1891, basketball did not have an international federation until the 1930s.

When the IOC met in Athens in 1934, they reported. “The application of the International Federation of Basketball to be included amongst the Olympic Federations received a very favourable reception.” It took its place for the first time in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics.

By this time there were 143 medal events on the programme and the size of the Games was now a very real cause for concern.

“The compilation of the programme demands still today the antique sense for proportion and quantity; in other words, the hand of an artist.” said Carl Diem, the man in charge of organising the sport at Berlin in 1936.

“I should like to state openly that the highest possible degree of conservatism should be maintained. The more the programme approaches timelessness, the more sacred it will become and the more venerable its fame.”

The IOC had now drawn up a list of what they described as compulsory Olympic sports and others in an “optional" list

The IOC constantly revised their criteria for what constituted an official sport at the Games. Before the war they drew up a series of “compulsory” and “optional “ sports In the late 1950s, they replaced this with one official list of 21 sports which are called "Olympic Sports".

They set down criteria that for inclusion in the Games each sport must be “widely practiced by men in at least 50 countries in three continents”. For women the threshold was a little lower. Only 35 countries were required. In each of these nations, the requirement was for an organised national championship and the participation in international competitions.

Whatever measures the IOC took, the Games continued to grow and the need to address gender equality increased the pressure. As television and new media coverage became ever more important,and rival organisations such as the X Games gained in popularity, the Olympic Movement was anxious to make sports more telegenic.

In the new millennium, they introduced an “Evaluation Criteria” which included 29 key questions across seven themes. It demanded a strong ethical code, gender equality , compliance with anti doping regulations and asked for “rules and procedures to fight competition fixing”. It also considered “global spread of excellence” with evidence of the “number of countries from each continent which won medals". It considered television ratings and live spectator attendance and required an independent survey to gauge “appeal of the sport amongst young people”.

When the vote was taken in at the 2005 IOC Session in Singapore, baseball and softball were both removed from the programme for the 2012 Games which included no new sports.The overall complement was restored to 28 sports for 2016 with the inclusion of rugby sevens and golf.

Tokyo 2020 has made its selection. Now it is up to the IOC to decide which sport or sports will strike it lucky.